In the Bed of a Pickup Truck
by Clearbrook
Summary: It's taken country star Edward Masen the better part of a year to find the love that was taken from him. An infuriating year where she was being kept right under his nose, yet far from his reach. After an anguish filled reunion, he'll take her home to Tennessee, where they'll both find healing in the bed of a pickup truck.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

EPOV

'Play it cool.' My manager, Emmett had said.

 _Play it cool._ Yeah, right. It took every bit of self control I possessed not to put my size 14 Tecovas square up Jay Hunter's ass, and that had been just when they walked through the door.

The girl weren't bigger than a minute and he was dragging her into the house and holding her upright by the back of her neck and her arm all at the same time. I took a good look at her and saw clearly the rumors were true. Isabella was as high as a kite in June and wearing some barely-there dress that my Izzy never would have been caught dead in if she'd had a say in the matter.

When I'd introduced myself to her at her launch party over a year ago, she'd been gorgeous and bright eyed. Her deep blue dress was stunning against her hazelnut skin, and her curly brown hair fluffed and framed her face. She was so excited she'd been bouncing all over the place like her britches were on fire. At 6 foot 3, and 225 pounds I towered over her tiny 5 feet… maybe 5 foot 2, max, but she just grinned up at me, not intimidated at all like a lot of people were. She'd been nervous too, talking to me and rambling on about any and every little thing and looking at me in awe when she finally realized exactly what Edward I was. Then she'd blushed and she was even more beautiful.

I'd been happy she even knew who I was, and had been about to ask her permission to take her out to dinner then, when her slimy manager slunk out like the snake he was, draping his arm over her possessively and dragging her away for her set. The way she'd kept turning her head over her shoulder to smile at me, even as she was being carted off, helped me to bite my tongue when her manager said something derogatory about _country artists_ being bad for the image he was trying to create.

The next time I'd seen her was at an industry party a few months later. Gone were the deep brown curls, I'd admired so much, and the innocent excitement. Instead she was fidgety in painted on shiny pants that came up over her belly and accentuated every bit of her curvy figure, and a shirt that was little better than a sparkly bra. Her arms crossed over her stomach and her straightened hair, about a million shades of blonde, made a curtain around her face as she stared at the floor at her feet.

When her manager walked off to follow some girl or another, I re-introduced myself.

"Isabella? Hi, I'm-"

Her head shot up and she grinned at me. "Duke!"

I frowned.

Who?

"Duke? Actually, it's-"

Her face turned dark red and she slapped one hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry. I know who you are Edward. It's just… a silly nickname I use."

I'd sidled closer to her, struck dumb by just how beautiful she was. "Where from?"

She smirked at me, and I swear I half fell in love with her then. "You have a 69 Charger, don't you? I figured it was very Dukes of Hazzard of you."

Now where in the hell had she seen that? That article was in a men's magazine. "You read that article in Motor Trend? And it's red, not orange." I told her, grinning.

"And no Confederate flag," She agreed. "But it reminded me of 'Dukes' anyhow. I've been calling you Duke in my head ever since." She ducked her head behind the curtain of blonde hair again, and wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

"Hey," I told her, flipping her hair behind her shoulder so I could see her face again. "I like it. You can call me Duke whenever you want, Izzy."

"Izzy?" She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. I wanted to ease it free with my thumb but she still looked like a filly about to bolt, so I kept my hands to myself.

"Well now, I figure it's only fair you have a nickname too."

She loosened up a little after that, and seemed closer to the Isabella I'd met before, though she still held her arms around herself until I had the sense to take my leather jacket off and drape it over her shoulders. She looked ashamed, but quickly tucked her arms into the sleeves and gather the front closed. My jacket swallowed her whole, and Lord but she looked awful pretty in my clothes. After that, I couldn't help but imagine what she'd look like in the morning in other clothes of mine, hair curly and wild, the bottom of her bubble butt and smooth brown legs on display under the hem of my favorite shirt, and biting on that plump bottom lip of hers. It was an image I was rather fond of.

"Do you want to go sit outside?" I asked her, nodding to the large patio outside of the windows to the right of us. It was mostly empty, except for the occasional smoker, and though it was October, there were heaters out there, but I'd been hoping she would let me help keep her warm. Isabella nodded eagerly and I knew I had to be grinning nervously like an untried virgin.

We escaped the party and sat on the patio talking about absolutely nothing for over an hour. The party didn't look to be winding down, but we both stayed where we were. It wasn't cold out by LA standards, but despite the heaters, Izzy started shivering after a while, and like I'd hoped, she allowed me to put an arm around her and hold her close.

I flirted with her relentlessly, and she slowly started to tease me back. Before the party was over, she'd traded numbers with me, agreed to let me take her out on a date, and then she'd let me kiss her goodnight. Neither of us was really eager to leave after that, so we sat on that bench, her head on my shoulder and our fingers playing together until Jay came out to get her. I definitely hadn't liked the look on his face. He'd looked like a man barely holding on to his temper, but when I offered to drive her home instead, she shook her head and told me she would be fine. I insisted, but she was adamant that she'd be alright, leaning up on her toes so she could kiss my cheek. She still couldn't reach until I leaned down to accommodate her.

I was nervous about her the whole way home and debated with myself on whether or not I wanted to call and check on her, but I knew I was being paranoid, and figured calling her too soon would make her uncomfortable.

To my surprise, she called me the next morning. My heart started thumping crazily in my chest when I saw the name "Izzy" flashing on my screen and in my haste to answer, I'd flung the darn thing halfway across the room and about fell out of the bed trying to get to it.

"Hello?" I panted when I finally caught up to the thing.

"Duke? Edward?" Her voice whispered quietly in my ear.

"Izzy? Why are you whispering? What's wrong?"

"I- um." She sniffled and I realized she was crying. "Our picture was in the paper this morning."

I put her on speaker and googled our names on my phone. Immediately several pictures came up of us on the patio at the party, the one that displayed the most was of us kissing, one of my hands buried in her hair and the other beneath the jacket and around her waist. Clearly there had been a camera man sneaking around that I hadn't seen.

Damn it.

"I'm sorry, Darlin'. I wasn't paying attention to anything but you. I should have-"

"It's not that." She whispered, and I realized I could hear a man's voice yelling faintly in the background.

Son of a bitch.

I was up quick, throwing on a pair of gym shorts and looking all over for a shirt even as I jammed my feet into a pair of tennis shoes. "It's just… Jay. He's really mad. He- I can't… I'm- I'm sorry. I don't know anybody else in LA. Can you come get me?"

"I'm already on my way," I assured her, snatching my keys off the table and tearing out the front door like Momma's prize bull was on my ass. As quick as I could get there, I was in the garage and tearing out of my designated spot. "Where are you Izzy?"

"In the closet." She whispered. "I think he's drunk or-or on something. He's acting insane."

Jesus Christ. "Sweetheart, I need your address. I need to know where you are so I can come get you."

Thankfully I paid an over the top monthly bill that allowed me to get every kind of signal there was on this ridiculously complicated cellphone so I didn't have to disconnect while I plugged her address into the GPS. It took the longest 40 minutes of my life to get to her, thanks to this God forsaken city traffic.

"My phone's dying." She whimpered just as I double parked in front of her building. "I'm here." I assured her. "I'm on my way up."

She was only on the 6th floor, and rather than chance waiting on the elevator, I sprinted up the stairs. I didn't even have to check the apartment numbers; I knew which apartment was hers out of the sheer amount of noise coming out of it.

I could clearly hear Jay ranting and carrying on and making all kinds of noise, calling Isabella everything but a child of God, as I charged right on in.

She'd been right. Jay had definitely been impaired and he swayed unsteadily on his feet as he whirled to face me. "You!" He'd sneered. "Haven't you done enough? You stay away from her, she's mine and you won't put your filthy hick hands on her again!"

I knew this had been about more than her image. Knew he wanted her, and I wanted to lay him flat for that alone, but instead I ignored him. "Izzy? Where are-"

Drunk or high though he may have been, Jay's hands were steady as he grabbed me by the shoulder and whirled me around to face him. He took a swing and before I could get back, he clocked me one across the chin.

"Settle down!" I snapped at him, landing my own blow to the side of his face. He crumpled, and I left him on the floor right where he landed.

"Izzy? Come on out, Sweetheart."

She'd still been in her sleep clothes, a pair of shorts and a big t-shirt, and she didn't bother to change or do much more than grab her purse and laptop bag. I carried her bags for her and held her to me while we waited for the elevator, my body between her and the front door of her apartment in case her sorry excuse for a manager woke up asking to borrow more trouble.

We got her back to my apartment without incident, and Bella pulled up a copy of her contract with her label on her laptop and asked me if I thought there was a way she could get out of it, or at the very least, get her another manager. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it, but my mother was a lawyer, and I offered to have her look into it for us. Then we'd spent the rest of the day holed up in my apartment watching movies on my couch until we passed out, curled up together.

We had our date the next night, and it went so well that we were together for the next 7 months, and they were 7 of the best months of my life. Her asshole manager glowered at me every chance he got, especially when I escorted her to the studio so she didn't have to be alone with him and the producers, but for the most part he behaved. As far as I knew, anyway. Izzy wouldn't talk about him too much, but as long as he kept his hands and his temper to himself, I wasn't going to press her.

4 months in, Izzy was practically living at my place. It was more secure than hers, and no one at her label knew where it was. We were in our own little bubble, and it was amazing. To this day, our Valentine's Day was down in the record books as the best damn day of my life. I'd had some things to take care of, trying to get my own label off the ground so I'd be in a better position to buy Izzy out of her contract if she wanted, and I'd purposefully moved the damn meeting to 8am so it wouldn't cut into my date, but the blowhards hadn't shut up until 5, and with traffic the way it was in LA, I didn't make it home until 7: 30.

I'd gone tearing into the apartment, clumsily setting the giant ridiculous arrangement of potted orchids down on the entry table, half in a panic because we'd had reservations for 7 o'clock, and I'd really wanted today to be special.

" _Izzy? Where are you Sweetheart? I'm so sorry, I tried like Hell to get out of there on time but they…_ Ho-lee Shit _."_

 _She came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel and wearing a flouncy lacey lingerie thing that, though loose beneath her full breasts, still managed to drape sexily over her curves in a deep red wine color that looked amazing against her brown skin. Her hair was straightened and trailed softly down her shoulders, makeup done in shades of soft browns and golds, and she was wearing the sexiest pair of matching red fuck-me heels that I'd ever seen._

 _She sauntered over to me, smiling. "Happy Valentine's Day, Duke."_

" _I… Happy… fuck." The girl had struck me completely stupid. Giggling, she reached a hand up behind my neck and pulled me down to her, because even in heels, she wasn't tall enough to reach my lips on tip toe. Her mouth dominated mine, and I lifted her up, wrapping her legs around my waist. "Bedroom." She whispered between kisses, yanking my beanie off and tossing it aside._

" _Yes ma'am." I agreed, extremely grateful that she'd insisted we get checked out last month and that she be put on birth control before she'd let me touch her. I kissed her desperately, gripping her ass and knocking us into damn near every wall between the kitchen and my room, and neither one us caring to let go long enough to get there properly._

 _When I'd finally managed to get us there, flinging the door open and likely knocking a hole in the wall, I dropped her on the bed and then stood there like a dope, staring. "You're so damn beautiful." I whispered._

 _Her face flushed, and then she smirked at me. "Are you gonna strip, Duke? Or do you want me to go finish Dinner?"_

" _You cooked?"_

" _I cooked." She agreed, climbing to her knees and pulling me closer by my shirt so she could start undoing buttons. "Everything except the chicken. I figured I'd fry that after you got home so it'd be hot still."_

" _You made me fried chicken?" Apparently I was still stupefied._

" _Well, not yet, but yeah. It's your favorite right?"_

 _Any other girl I'd dated would have been livid that I missed our reservations. Would have never been okay with eating at home on Valentine's Day, and especially not anything as ordinary or fattening as my favorite foods. Not my Izzy though. She had come out of the kitchen looking like Sin incarnate, making me fried chicken and not saying one negative word about me being late._

" _God, I love you." I blurted, because I really couldn't help it._

 _Her hands froze on my buttons, and she stared, wide eyed. "What did you say?_

 _I brushed her hair out of her face and tenderly cupped her cheek. My heart pounded wildly, and it felt like a thousand horses were stampeding all over my chest, but it was out there now, and I'd meant every single word of it. "I love you, Iz."_

 _She stayed frozen a moment more before she smiled beautifully, and kissed me sweetly. "I love you too." She breathed, snatching my shirts out of my waistband and pulling both of them over my head. "Now get naked, damn it."_

" _Okay, woman." I laughed. "Keep your britches on."_

" _The point is britches off Duke. Off!"_

 _She snatched my belt loose, and all nervousness and awe fled out the barn door. There was nothing but need, and want._

 _I stilled her hands, because at the rate she was going, I'd be inside her in the next 20 seconds, and I wanted to savor her, savor our first time together. Lowering us down onto the bed, savor her is exactly what I did. I licked every inch of her before I buried my fingers and tongue deep, and only when she'd come twice and begged for me to fill her, did we have our first time together. Hell we had out first, several times together, and hours later when we were sticky and sweaty and exhausted, I carried Iz into the shower and we made love slowly before I got us both cleaned up and then dried off._

 _Afterwards, I sat at the kitchen table watching her finish dinner, wrapped in a short bath towel, hair, wet and curly again, piled haphazardly on top of her head. Despite the fact that Izzy had been on television, won that talent show and became famous quickly, she hadn't let any of it go to her head. She didn't insist on being made up all the time, didn't fret about her hair constantly. I knew it had to have taken hours for her to straighten it out today, but she'd jumped right in the shower with me, getting it wet without a second thought._

 _Because I needed to touch her again, I sidled up behind her, slipping my hand inside her towel on her bare stomach, and playing with a loose curl at the nape of her neck. "I'm glad you didn't let them talk you into permanently straightening your hair." I told her. "I love it like this."_

" _Dying it was bad enough." She grumbled, turning the chicken in the pan. And then I noticed what was in the second pan and grinned._

" _You're frying Okra too? Damn girl, I haven't had fried Okra since I've been back home. You do know you're going to have to marry me now."_

 _She half choked, half laughed. "Now? I don't think I'm dressed for it." She teased._

" _Hell yes, right now, while you're all agreeable from multiple orgasms." I wrapped my arm around the front of her shoulders, drawing her back to me, and trailing my other hand from her belly, through her bare folds and down to her clit. "I could have us in Vegas in a couple hours." I whispered in her ear, only mostly joking as I rolled her bud between my fingers. "No one would even notice the towel too much."_

" _Duke, the food." She whimpered, rolling her hips, trailing her hot pussy over my hand. I pulled her away from the stove and dragged her over to the table, knocking candle holders out of my way to lay her down on the table top. "You just turned 'em. I'll make you come long before it burns." I promised._

 _I yanked her towel open so I could see every inch of her, and in 2 seconds, my sweats were pushed down my legs and I was inside of her. Fuck, she felt so good. I lifted both of her legs over my shoulders and grunted when she screamed as I pounded into her._

" _So good." I moaned, gripping her tapered waist, just above her wide hips. "So good. Fuck, Iz."_

" _Edwaaaard." She moaned, and I knew this time wasn't gonna last long. I leaned forward, pushing her knees toward her chest and angled my thrusts upward, aiming for her sweet spot. It took three tries before I got it, and when I did, she screamed loud enough to rattle the windows, head slamming into the table with a thud. Damned if I didn't love it. "There?" I asked thrusting rapid fire, sweat pouring down my back._

" _Yes!" She cried. "Yes! Fuck!" I knew I had her then, because baby girl didn't cuss any worse than 'damn'. I slammed into her, reaching a hand between us and pinching her swollen clit. She screamed my name, high and long, and I lost all rhythm when I came so hard my vision whited out for a moment. I planted my fists on the table to keep from collapsing on her, watching through half lidded eyes as my sweat dripped onto her chest._

 _When I could breathe again, I kissed her slowly and eased her shaking legs down off my shoulders._

" _Love you, Iz."_

" _Love you too, Duke."_

The next 2 months were straight bliss, but the last month or so, of our relationship my Izzy started acting real funny. At first I chalked it up to stress from working so hard. She'd released a single that had done really well, and now she was spending a lot of time working on her second album. But then she was nervous, jumpy and weepy in a way that had me wondering if her manager or someone else done something to her. Her memory was terrible too. She'd forget things we talked about the day before, forget plans we made, fumble the words to her own songs at events she performed at. At the end of May, she started losing entire days and getting sick, and we agreed it was time to take her to the doctor.

The next morning, I had a meeting and she'd had to be in the studio, so I took her home to change, and then dropped her off with a kiss and a promise to pick her up for her appointment and then date night. I helped her down out of the truck and then walked her to the entrance.

It was the last time I'd seen her in person.

When I went to go pick her up from the studio, no one was there. I checked her apartment, but it was dead silent, and her phone number had been disconnected. I waited in the hall for an hour until one of her neighbors had recognized me and lost it. She wasn't at my apartment either, so I'd tried back at hers every day for a week until an older man across the hall told me a couple of men had moved her out of the apartment in the middle of the night. The description of one of them sounded exactly like her controlling manager, the creepy little shit.

Regardless, I never stopped trying to get a hold of her. None of her team would give me her number or pass along a message, like I was some sort of crazed fan and not her boyfriend. I knew something was wrong, because I knew my Izzy and this wasn't her style. She wouldn't ghost me this way.

In the public eye, her career was tanking fast. She was missing a third of her performances and flubbing all the rest. If she wasn't seriously sick, she was on something, but as much time as I spent with her, I knew she'd never touched the stuff. So I kept trying to catch her after performances, or run into her, but unfortunately with her being and R&B artist, and me being a Country one, we didn't really run in the same circles, so I kept missing her by miles.

Until today.

Now she stood directly in front of me, in my new house at my after party for the AMAs. After months of trying to keep her away from me, that idiot Jay didn't even realize whose house he was standing in.

"Gotcha, you son of a bitch." I started to head over to them, but my manager and soon-to-be partner Emmett, who was one of the few men in the room bigger than I was, stepped in front of me. "I said 'play it cool' Edward. I know it's shitty but you can't just go, what? Barging over and demand he safely hand her over?"

I sighed. "This is bullshit, Em. Look at her!"

Jay continued to roughly drag her through the house, most likely looking for a bathroom. Izzy stumbled on her heels, and most of the partygoers eyed her with pity, and the man gripping her with disgust. This was a house full of people in the music industry, and they all knew his reputation as well as I did. As they disappeared from view, I followed them and Emmett followed me, muttering about making sure I got proof first, and taking the lead as we came to the kitchen doors. I waved the catering staff away while Emmett motioned for me to stay back and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

I hovered in the doorway, but all I wanted to do was go to Isabella and get her the hell out of here. She was leaning heavily on the island, face pressed into the marble beneath a curtain of blond hair.

"Jay Hunter, you dog!" Emmett boomed, sounding like he was greeting an old friend as he clapped a hand on the asshole's shoulder. Hunter turned in Emmett's direction, brown eyes bleary and bloodshot against skin a couple shade darker than Isabella's. He was the epitome of a pretty city boy, or at least he used to be, until he started hittin' the drugs and the liquor hard. "McCarty? Sup man?"

He went to shake hands with Emmett and nearly fell over. Even from the doorway, I could tell he smelled unwashed, like a pig in shit. "She alright?" Emmett motioned to Isabella, who was rolling her face from side to side on the counter, groaning. I moved to go to her again, but Emmett waved me back, and I was getting damned impatient for whatever this cockamamie plan of his was.

"Oh, her?" Hunter smirked. "Shitty tolerance."

"Tolerance for what?" Emmett asked, casually inserting himself between Hunter and Izzy. Jay gave that slick smile again and pulled a capped syringe out of his pants pocket. "It's designer man, I get it special. You can give it any way you want. Makes girls into a Stepford wife, man. Makes 'em complacent and open to suggestion. They do whatever you want and don't remember shit after."

I stared at him in horror, and if my feet hadn't been frozen to the floor, I would have beat him to death right then and there.

"Tell you what," He offered the syringe to Emmett, who quickly pocketed it. "You can have this one. Try it on your bitch. If you like it I'll sell you some, man. I got the connect."

"I'll keep that in mind." Emmett replied dryly. "C'mon Ed, let's get her out of here."

I was by her side in a flash, pushing Izzy's hair out of the way so I could see her face.

"Izzy? Izzy, Baby? Talk to me."

"Mmm." She groaned. "Stomach hurts. Baby. Stomach hurts."

Jay reached over Emmett, trying to take a swipe at either her or me as his face mottled and twisted. "I told you to fucking get rid of it, stupid ass bitch! You're going to ruin everything!"

Fuck.

No!

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Izzy moaned again and leaned away from him, almost falling over. I caught her around her waist and my hands immediately landed on a small but hard and rounded stomach.

Son of a bitch.

"Duke?" She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry. I tried to find you. I tried, I tried to get away. I'm so sorry."

"Shh," I swung her up into my arms and headed for the garage. She was pregnant and had God knows what in her system. Behind us, Jay carried on like a stark-raving lunatic, but I trusted Emmett to keep him at bay while I got her out of here. "It's okay Sweetheart. We're going to get you to the hospital."

"It hurts, Duke."

"I know Baby, I know."

I tried to load her into the Porsche, but she cried out as soon as she bent to get inside. "I can't!" She cried. "It hurts, it hurts."

"Okay Honey, okay. I'm sorry." I dug my phone out of my back pocket and called for an ambulance while I held Izzy up and she clung to me, forehead pressed to my sternum while she rocked and moaned. Because of how far I lived, it took 15 minutes for an ambulance to make it up to us, but they loaded her into the back immediately and I followed, clinging to her hand while they strapped her in and one shoved the short skirt of her dress up to examine her.

When one of them said something about an IV, Izzy clung to me. "No! No more needles! Please!"

"Ma'am," the older of the two paramedics, a lady with black hair pulled back into a severe bun placed a hand on Bella's shoulder. "We have to get an IV going so we can medicate you."

"NO!"

"Her manager has been drugging her against her will for months." I told them. "Does she really need one right this minute?"

"She'll get one when we get to the hospital, regardless."

"Izzy? Sweetheart?" I pushed her hair out of her eyes, and caressed the side of her face. "Hey, they have to do this, okay? It'll be quick, just look at me." Even as I spoke, the dark haired paramedic tied a rubber band around Isabella's opposite arm.

"Just look at me. I know you hate it, and I'm sorry. He's never getting near you again; do you hear me? Never again? Shhh, Sweetheart."

Though the woman was quick, Izzy still flinched and cried pitifully when the needle slid into her forearm. I kissed her hand, her arm, her cheek and forehead, anything to distract her. My phone went off in my pocket, but I ignored it.

In no time at all, we were pulling up at the hospital bay, and people were everywhere. I was right alongside her as she was wheeled into a hospital room and transferred from one bed to another. Still clutching my hand, Izzy rolled onto her side, other hand clutching her stomach and her teeth began chattering. Doctors and nurses began to file into the room like mad. I knew they probably wanted to tell me to amscray, but because of who Izzy and I were, they wouldn't. Not yet anyways. They rolled her onto her back and put her legs up into stirrup things and a doctor warned her that she was about to perform an exam, while a nurse hurriedly pulled blood out of her IV and carried it away.

The doctor, with his head between Izzy's legs demanded one of the nurses go get another doc and an ultrasound machine then he asked Bella how far along she was.

"I can't remember." She panted, fingers gripping mine tightly. "Please, it hurts."

A blonde woman burst into the room wheeling a large machine and she handed the other doctor a lubed up wand thing. I watched in horror as the wand disappeared beneath the sheet covering Izzy's legs, and a short while later, the image of baby shaped blob appeared on the screen.

"Measuring 26 weeks. No movement." The female doctor murmured lowly, and my stomach dropped down into my boots. "No heartbeat."

The first doctor moved the wand around and around, and the second doctor pressed on Izzy's stomach. Izzy moaned, but the image on the screen only moved slightly when the doctor pressed. It didn't move again.

Oh God.

" _I'm so sorry, Miss. Swan_."

Fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Things went quickly after that. Izzy went into labor without any medication, and I wrapped as much of her as I could in my arms while she cried when her water broke, and when she struggled to birth a child who had already passed.

There was so much blood, and even after a tiny baby boy emerged, blue and red and bruised, the huge clots just kept coming. A nurse wrapped the little one in a small blanket, and offered the bundle to his mother, while the others scrambled around hanging IV bags and fiddling with the machines in the room.

Isabella hesitated, and then reached for him slowly, ignoring the other people in the room. When she drew him close, and adjusted his blanket so she could uncover his face, she cried out and shoved a fist to her mouth to muffle her sobs. Even as I squeezed her, I felt hot tears streak down my face as I looked down and saw what she did.

My son. _Mine_.

He was so tiny, and much too early, so his eyes looked to be still sealed shut, but that didn't take away from the fact that he looked like me, and I could see it as clear as day.

Dear God, my child.

My son.

I rested one hand around hers, around our child, buried my face in Izzy's hair and cried.

"I'm sorry." Izzy sobbed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

I took a deep breath and tried to be more calm. She needed me right now and I couldn't fall apart. "It's not your fault, Honey. Shhh. It's not your fault."

"Excuse me, hun." One of the nurses, with tears streaking down her face as well, rubbed a soothing hand down Izzy's arm. "When you're ready, Sweetie, I can take him to get him cleaned up. I'll bring him right back, and you can spend as much time with him as you need."

Reluctantly, she handed our boy over to the nurse, and then just lay back, unmoving as the doctor between her knees continued to pull large clots out, while tears ran down the side of her face.

"Am I hurting you Ms. Swan?" The doctor asked, "I just want to make sure all of the placenta came free. It abrupted, meaning it tore away from the uterine wall, and it can cause damage if any of it stays in place."

Izzy ignored him, and continued to stare up at the ceiling, even as her teeth started to chattering madly again.

"Are you cold, Sweetheart?" I asked, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"No." She whispered quietly. "I think it's the drugs coming down. I remember feeling like this a lot."

Mark my words, I'm going to kill Jay Hunter if it was the last thing I ever did.

The doctor looked up at Izzy's words and said lowly. "We have a physician better versed in detox coming up, and he'll be able to make you a lot more comfortable, Ms. Swan."

Again, she didn't say a word, just stared up at the ceiling, crying silently and teeth chattering. The doctor finished up, and changed the paper pad out beneath Bella so he could monitor her bleeding, he said, and then he was gone. No sooner than he left, there was a knock on the door, and the nurse returned with our son.

I helped Izzy sit back up, and the nurse placed him, gently as can be, back in Izzy's arms, and we both took a real long look at him.

Izzy bit her lip hard as she withdrew the blanket and noticed they'd put him in a tiny cloth diaper and hat. She folded him back into his blanket and clutched him to her breast, sobbing.

"I hate to do this," The nurse started, tears running down her face again. "But I have to let you know that the police were here. And do to the nature of your arrival, and the pending charges against the person who drugged you, they're going to need an autopsy."

Izzy whimpered, but didn't interrupt as the nurse went on. "We'll need to know after that if you'll want him buried with other infants from the hospital, or if you want us to release him to a funeral home for burial or cremation. You don't have to decide right now." She placed a folder on the tray table by the bed. "But I've brought some papers for you to look into. If you've picked a name for him already, or you want to name him now, you call and let me know so we can put it on something for you." With one last rub to Izzy's arm, and to mine, we were finally alone in the room.

This was so messed up. I didn't know what to do, or what to say or even if I should try to do or say anything. So I simply squeezed in the bed next to her and held them both while she cried. When her teeth chattering turned into tremors, she jerkily passed him to me, and I took the opportunity to lift is hat and his diaper, briefly memorizing every inch of him before I covered him back up. I didn't want him exposed to the cold air too long. Even though… fuck.

He fit mostly into one hand, and I felt my eyes burn again as I traced a finger over his forehead, his face, and his chin. "Do you want to name him?" I whispered to Izzy, voice thick with the effort it took to try and be strong for her.

Hands clenched against the trembling, she leaned against my shoulder to look at him. "When I remembered, I thought about using Anthony or Jasmine. Anthony Alexander Masen. Is that okay?"

"Of course, Sweetheart." My middle and last names. "I'm honored." And I was. Isabella turned to her side, and I scooted so we were facing each other with Anthony between us. We stayed like that until the nurse returned to check Izzy's bleeding and help her to the little girl's room. When they came back, the nurse was frowning, so Izzy must have still been bleeding too much, she asked again after Anthony and we'd told her his name. She had me write it down for her, and she produced a camera to take a picture of the three of us before we let her take him away.

Izzy wailed then, pressing shaking hands over her face to try to quiet herself as let out these horrible choking and heartbreaking sobs. I tried so hard to be strong for her, but I could do little more than squeeze her while I cried too.

I didn't let her go, just wiped my face with one hand while the doctor came back in the room with another doctor that we hadn't seen yet, and explained to us that he was going to have to draw some blood to send down to the lab, as he was worried about how much she was still bleeding.

Again, Izzy flinched when the needle pierced her skin, but her shaking was so bad that she had to be stuck twice more before they got a good enough IV in her other arm to use. He explained that he needed a second one just in case Izzy needed blood, and it was better to just put it in, than to stick her for labs and have to stick her again later for an IV. After he left, the second doctor explained to us that he was going to try to manage her detoxing. The police had identified the components in the drug in her system, and the doctors thought it was safer for her to be medically assisted with clearing that junk out of her.

I don't think Izzy cared at this point, she was so miserable. The doctor put something in her original IV where she had just plain fluids going now, and told us he'd be back in a while to check on her. Slowly the shaking eased a bit.

"Does that feel a little better at least?" I asked her, running my hands through her sweaty tangled hair. She shrugged, not looking me in the eye, even as hers teared up again.

I kissed her on the forehead. "I'm so sorry Sweetheart."

She shook head and her tears fell faster. "My fault." She cried. "I should have done something."

"Isabella, he kept you so high you didn't know up from down. None of this is your fault."

"It is." She sobbed. "I suspected he was giving me something when I started having memory lapses. He was always wanting to have our meetings over food or he was picky about making sure I ate something all the time. And then… and then I thought I might be pregnant, and I was so scared that either he hurt the baby or… Edward, I had so much time missing… I don't know if he…"

"Has he touched you since?"

She nodded, still avoiding looking at my face.

 _I'm going to kill him._

"You can't do anything crazy!" She cried, head almost shooting up into my chin. I didn't realize I had spoken out loud, but it didn't change a damned thing.

"Horse shit." I hissed, furious. "He kidnapped my girl, as good as held you hostage for months, meddled in shit he had no business meddlin' in, like shutting off your phone and clearing out your apartment. He deliberately kept you high as a damn kite, so he could do Lord knows what to you, damaging your career, all the while not giving one red hot shit about what he was doing to our baby, and he cost us both precious time with our child. Neither one of us can ever get that back, Iz. Fuck!" I climbed out of the bed, agitated, and needing to pace.

In the bed, Izzy curled in on herself and cried. Fuck, I was tired of seeing her cry. "Izzy, shit, I'm sorry Sweetheart." I sat back beside her and pulled her into my arms. "When I couldn't find you, I about went insane. I knew, even if you wanted to leave me, you wouldn't do it like that, but I'll be damned if I could get to you. You didn't show up at all of your shows and Jay's people wouldn't put me through to you, I didn't have a phone number, didn't know where you lived.

The only reason I had that damned party is because I was hoping he would show up and bring you. We told everyone it was a label party and left it at that."

"What party?" Izzy asked, and I stiffened. "Izzy?" I pulled away so I could see her face. "Don't you remember how you got here?"

"I… I remember seeing you in a kitchen and then we went outside and you called an ambulance. Before that, I'm not sure where I was last. I think we were supposed to go to the AMAs but…"

"But what, Iz."

Her face paled, and she lowered her head, shaking it. "Nothing." She whispered. "Nothing. I remember more than I used to, but it's still not a lot."

That sick fuck had done something to her just today… and she didn't want to tell me. I wouldn't push her, not right now. But the police were going to come soon, and she would have to tell someone sooner or later.

It looked like our conversation was on pause for the moment anyways. The first doctor and nurse from before came back, the doc carrying an IV bag of blood, and another smaller bag, and the nurse carrying a flat white box. While the doctor fiddled with hanging the bags, the nurse brought the box over to Isabella and I.

"Hospital volunteers make these memory boxes for parents." She explained. "You don't have to look at it now, just when you're ready. How are you feeling Hun?"

Izzy shrugged morosely. "I'm okay."

"How's your pain doing?"

"Doesn't matter. It's fine."

"Izzy." I cut in. "If you're hurting, please tell the nurse."

"I'm fine." She said again, and I sighed.

"Iz, you just gave bir-"

"Don't!" She snapped, and then winced. "I'm sorry. Just… Please… I'm fine."

"No problem." The nurse said pleasantly. "There's no expiration date. If you want something for pain, let me know." She tucked more blankets around her, explaining that the blood was going to likely make her cold, and then she pulled up a chair and made herself comfortable in the corner with the chart in her hand.

Then the doc took over, and explained that Iz was going to get a unit of blood and some antibiotics just as a preventative, and that she would need to be monitored for any possible reaction, so the nurse was going to stay in the room until her half an hour after the IV finished and would be frequently checking her vital signs.

Needless to say, it was a long night after that. The police came, apologizing for the late hour, but it had taken them a bit to get warrants for Isabella's medical records and Hunter's house. Jay was in custody and Emmett had given them the syringe he'd gotten from him. Jay had had 2 more syringes in his pocket, as well as a decent sized bag of coke. In his house, he'd had a mini fridge full of the shit that he'd given Iz.

"Some guy named Laurent brings it to him." Iz sighed, shivering. Both of the officers froze, instantly.

"You sure ma'am?" The smaller blonde woman asked. "Can you describe him?"

"Dark skinned, long dreads with shells in them. Sounded Haitian maybe. Freaky yellow contacts."

"They let you see him?"

"As often as I could, I pretended to be more out of it than I was. Kept him from giving me any more than he already had and I could remember more."

"What all _do_ you remember Ms. Swan?" The other officer, a black haired, older Italian looking gentleman asked. "Start from the beginning."

And so Izzy told them how it started that first night when the newspapers published pictures of she and I outside on that patio, and how he'd shown up at her apartment and started screaming about her messing up his plan, and being his. How I'd come and gotten her and how Jay had seemingly been on his best behavior for a couple of months, and then she had noticed small pieces of her memory missing. Not being able to remember what she'd done the day before, what song she'd recorded, who she'd seen in the studio with her, conversations we'd had and plans we'd made. Then she started losing whole days and feeling odd. She'd really been terrified when a music video had been released on her VEVO page that she didn't remember recording, wearing clothes that she never would have agreed to.

I felt sick for not paying closer attention to what she was doing. I knew that she had lost a day, but not that this had happened. If I'd paid closer attention and realized that she was filming and recording things she wouldn't usually agree to, I would have suspected Jay sooner.

God dammit.

Unaware of the suffocating feeling of self loathing that had come over me, Iz continued her story, and told the police how she told me she had lost a day, and she'd agreed to let me take her to the doctor. She remembers me dropping her off at the studio that morning, and getting into an argument with Jay over something he'd said about our relationship. The next thing she knew, she was in his house with all of her stuff, and she had no recollection of getting there.

She was sick as a dog too. She suspected then that she could have been pregnant, but she hadn't been sure how much time had passed. She confronted him, but every time she did, she noticed gaps in her memory, so she stopped arguing as much, but it did no good. He still mixed drugs into her food and drink, and when she refused to eat or drink, he stabbed her with a needle.

"Where?" the female officer interrupted. "I don't see any track marks."

Sighing, Bella turned slightly, a lifted her gown so that the officers could see that what was visible of the side of her butt was purple, black and blue.

"Jesus." I whispered, closing my eyes.

"We're going to need pictures ma'am," The female said. J. Volturi, her name plate read. "We'll get the nurse to take them if she hasn't already so you only have to go through this once."

They let her tell the rest of her story, during which Isabella admitted that he'd forced her to sleep with him just that morning, like I'd been afraid of. And the nurse, who was still in the room, admitted that they'd gotten a seminal sample during her initial exam, and in her records, it showed that the seminal fluid did not match the DNA that came from the baby. Just further proved that Anthony had been my son, not his. I would have ruined him anyway, but he was seriously going to suffer now, if I had to sink every red cent I'd ever made into making sure of it.

Six months. Izzy had a handful of memories in tact after six fucking months. She'd had no idea the damage being done to her career and even worse, she had missed our child growing, just as much as I had.

I was pissed. Madder than shit.

The officers thankfully didn't make Izzy repeat any of her story, and they left after the nurse had taken pictures of the bruising to her backside. The nurse was finally able to leave after her blood finished transfusing, and she hadn't had any reactions, so I eased into the bed again.

"Duke," She whispered, putting an unsteady hand to my chest. "I'm bleeding. And shaky."

"Shh," I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her fingers. "I've missed you Iz. Let me hold you? Please?"

She went to scoot over but I stilled her, fine with my body half on and half off the bed. One foot rested firmly on the floor, and Izzy's head rested in the hook of my shoulder. I played with her fingers until she finally fell into a fitful sleep. I was way too torn up to rest, so I got up and let the side rail up, and paced for a bit, but the click of my boot heels on the floor was loud in the silence, and I didn't want to wake her.

I felt cagey, overloaded and tight. I needed to be doing something, but what could I do? Everything had gone to Hell in a hand basket, starting and ending with Jay Hunter. And why the fuck hadn't somebody at the label seen that shit and put a stop to it? It would be a frigid day in Hell before I let her go back there. I had been intending to buy out her contract for her anyway, but this was different. They were going to _let_ her out of her contract or it was gonna get real ugly in Los Angeles. I had some phone calls to make, but it was 3 am here, and 5 am in Tennessee so instead I sent my mother a text message to call me when she got up.

My phone rang not 10 minutes later.

" _Edward, you aren't partying again are you? What are you doing up_?"

"Good morning Mama, I'm up because I'm at the hospital with Izzy."

" _You found her? Oh thank the Lord! How is she?"_

Mama knew how frantic I'd been when Iz had disappeared, and though she'd only talked to her on the phone a couple times, she'd agreed that something wasn't right, and suspected that someone at her label had been forcing her hand.

"It's bad, Ma. Her manager is in jail. He's been drugging her for months. Iz is having withdrawals and she's shaking something terrible, even in her sleep, but the doctor said it's going to get worse before it gets better."

" _Oh, sweetheart. I'm so sorry. Do you need me to come there? I'm coming up there. Your father and I can be on the next flight out."_

"No, just hold on a tic. If she agrees, we're going to come there as soon as her doctor clears her. I want her away from all of these people. I have a feeling it's going to turn into a 3-ring circus and we're going to need space for a while to grieve properly."

" _Grieve, Edward?_ "

I sighed. "Mama, she was pregnant when he took her."

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long while, and then finally she whispered. " _Yours?_ "

"Yes."

" _Dear God_. What happened? _When_?"

"She went into labor around midnight. He'd already passed. I don't know for how long."

" _You bring her home Edward. She needs family._ "

"I know Mama. We'll be there as soon as possible."

" _Take care in the mean time. Call me when you know something. I assume you'll be suing for release from her contract?"_

"I haven't talked to her about it yet, but that's what I'm thinking."

" _I still have the copy you all sent me last year. I'll take another look at it and get started."_

"Thanks Mama. You'll tell Alice and that boyfriend of hers to be on their best behavior? Izzy and I won't be putting up with their foolishness. I mean it."

Ma made one of those annoyed Southern noises into the phone.

" _I sure could tell her if I knew where her narrow behind was. You know how she is, she'll come sniffing around when she gets wind you're home_."

I sighed, regretting spoiling her when I first started making records. After my first tour had been such a hit to where we'd had to add extra dates, I bought her a decent sized house, and a Porsche Cayenne that was way too big a car for the ugly yellow she'd begged for. Instead of being appreciative, my little sister had blown well past spoiled brat and turned into an entitled little shit.

"Well if you see her, tell her for me please. I'll call you and Daddy when I know when we're coming."

" _Alright Baby. Love you. Kiss Isabella for me."_

"Will do, Mama. Love you too. Bye."

With Mama looking into her contract, I felt the smallest bit better. My mother was a sweetheart, but she was a bear of a family lawyer. After I started singing, she studied entertainment contracts until she could add them as a second specialty to put under her belt, and now she covered almost half of the country singers in Nashville, and a few people I'd met out in LA who'd been looking for someone.

Next to me Izzy's trembling started back up, through her whole body this time, and she gripped her stomach, moaning. I punched the call button on the side rail, and a nurse came in almost immediately. This was one I hadn't seen before.

"Hi," She smiled brightly. "I'm Jessica. Can I help you?"

"She's sore still, and all that moving is hurting her." I said, voice rough, gritty and tired. "Can you give her whatever it is she had before that settled her shaking down?"

"Of course, Mr. Masen, sir! I'll grab a doctor and be right back."

I sighed at how bright and overeager she was as she tore out of the room, grateful that it was lighting a fire under her, but too tired to deal with the perkiness.

Izzy moaned again, and I went to her, seeing that she was sweaty and pulled two of her blankets back.

"Are you alright, Sweetheart?" I kissed the top of her head, but she didn't answer. The doctor and nurse came back in, and the doctor took a look at her and at her vitals signs on the monitor and wrote something on the clipboard in his hand before handing it to the nurse.

The nurse left and quickly returned, and Izzy was medicated, easing almost immediately. She opened bleary eyes and reached for me. "Duke?"

"I'm here, Sweetheart." I kissed her fingers and held them.

"Lay with me?"

"Sure thing."

She scooted to the side and I managed to squeeze in. The nurse "helpfully" raised the side rail so I wouldn't fall out, and I'm going to assume her hand grazing my ass as she let the side rail up was an accident. She didn't say anything else, just flipped the lights back off and hurried out. I sighed, and settled in. I'd already resigned myself to not getting a wink of sleep, but I could at least ensure Izzy was as comfortable as possible.

"How you doin' Iz?"

"A little sore, but okay. Is my shaking bothering you?"

"No Baby. I'm just really glad to have you in my arms again. I missed you. I missed you so damn much."

"I missed you too, Duke." She reached a hand towards me, saw how it was shaking and huffed, dropping it back down. I picked it up and held it to my chest.

"I wanted to tell you." She whispered.

"Tell me what, Sweetheart?"

"About… about Anthony. I didn't know for sure, but I'd forgotten to get my next shot. The first one wore off at the end of April, and everything was so crazy, I forgot. I was going to tell you that day you dropped me off. I was waiting until after we went on our date that night. I didn't take a test yet, but I thought maybe we could, um…" She wiped tears from her eyes and kept going, looking at my chin instead of my face. "I thought if you weren't too mad we could find out together. I had a box of tests in my purse. I was recording, and my phone started going off, Jay flipped out because I forgot to silence it and he went in my purse to get it and he saw them. That's what we argued about."

So he'd known the whole time she was pregnant.

"I'm so sorry." She wept. "If I had just told you… but I was so afraid you'd be mad."

"First off, Izzy I would never be mad about something that you and I created, I don't care what else we had or will have going on. It's not your fault you were forgetful, and even if he hadn't been drugging you and you forgot on your own, I still wouldn't have been mad. It should have been something that occurred to me too, and it didn't. And who's to say that shit he gave you didn't cancel out your shot. We have no idea what was in that stuff. You stop apologizing now, Sweetheart. None of this is your fault. I just wish it hadn't taken me so God damned long to get to you."

She wept even harder, and I rocked her as best I could in this pitiful excuse for a bed. I don't know how long it was before she fell asleep, but it wasn't much longer than that before the room started to lighten little by little. I just lay there with my eyes closed, resting as best I could, but my mind was way too rattled to go to sleep.

As dawn broke fully, the door opened for what was probably the billionth time since we'd been here. When the nurse didn't announce herself, I'd figured she was just checking to see if we were up and if Izzy needed anything, so I didn't bother to open my eyes.

And then I heard the clicking of a camera shutter.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Tissue Warning!**_

 **Chapter 3**

"Edward, you didn't have to scare the girl like that." Mama scolded as I opened the door and let us into the house. The bodyguard entered first, quickly walking through all of the rooms, Mama went in next, and then I helped Izzy in because the stubborn girl wouldn't let me carry her.

Despite what I had said about not needed to fly down yet, she'd caught the first plane she could get on and came anyway, arriving right in the middle of a shit storm.

"She's lucky _all_ I did was scare her. She posted those pictures all over the internet by the time I'd made it out of the bed. She had no right."

That silly nurse Jessica had snuck into the room to take a picture of us, and hadn't had the brains to make sure her phone was on silent first. She'd back pedaled out of the room, and by the time I'd made it over the side rail and to the door, she had hit send on the post and shoved her phone into the top of her scrubs.

 _I marched her happy butt to the nurses' station and raised a Hell like they had never seen until they got the Hospital Administrator in to pull us into one of the empty rooms, because I'd refused to leave the floor to go to her office._

 _Jessica denied it up and down, stating she had just been checking in on her patient, but she wouldn't turn over her phone either. She and the administrator had gone toe to toe over the punishments Jessica could get for failing to cooperate with an investigation and did the police need to get involved. "Judging by the fact that my phone's vibrating like a sex toy in my pocket," I snapped, tired of their shit. "I think I can clear this right on up."_

 _All the texts were telling me to check my Instagram, so I logged in and stared at the post. "SexiNurseJessi." I read outloud. "Would that be you?" Clearly the girl hadn't had the sense God gave a nematode because she'd tagged both Izzy's professional account, and mine in the picture of the two of us scrunched in the hospital bed together. I read the caption out loud, getting more and more infuriated as I went._

"' _TheIsabella lost her baby last night and it was definitely drug related. Poor EdwardMasen, deserves better, but he stayed with her all night while she's going through withdrawal even though she cheated on him and left him for her manager. Hashtag Addiction is a Disease, Hashtag Poor Edward, Hashtag Rest in Peace Anthony Alexander Masen.'_ You had no right _!" I roared, flinging the phone onto the bed to avoid flinging it at her fucking head._

 _Mrs. Denali, the hospital administrator picked up the phone and paled as she looked at the post. "Mr. Masen, I'm so sorry. Jessica, will of course delete this post immediately, and the hospital had nothing-"_

" _Save it." I growled. "You've violated countless patient privacy laws, never mind that there's an investigation ongoing, in which Isabella is the victim and you've just spread lies all over the internet for millions of people to see."_

 _I snatched the phone from the woman, and clicked on Jessica's profile because of course it wasn't private, and what I saw made me see red and I had to sit down or I'd strangle the idiot girl to death._

"Take the picture of my son down _." I hissed, tugging on my hair and trying to take deep breaths so I wouldn't yell in the middle of the hospital. It didn't work, because I bellowed as loud as a drunk at the rodeo. "TAKE IT DOWN, NOW!"_

" _Edward?" My mother, of all people, stuck her head into the door, giving me a disapproving look. "What on earth? I could hear you clear down the hall."_

" _Perfect timing Ma, come here."_

 _I got up and pulled my mother into the room by her hand. "Ma, this is Mrs. Denali, the hospital Administrator, and this is Jessica, the nurse who snuck into Iz's room while we were sleeping and into wherever they're keeping our son to take pictures and post them on the internet, along with our son's name and implications that Isabella is an adulterous drug addict."_

 _Ma gasped, horrified. I quickly took a screen shot of the handful of posts because Jessica was fiddling with her phone, probably trying to delete them, but I knew it was way too late, other sites had probably already picked them up._

" _Ladies, this is my mother, Esmeralda Cullen. You can finish this discussion with her, because she's also my lawyer."_

Every time I thought about it, I was mad enough to spit nails.

Iz had been…. There weren't any words I knew horrible enough to describe the devastated look on her face when I told her about the posts. She had already woke up half panicked when she was in the room alone, and then she'd heard me yelling down the hall. I told her then and there that we were leaving Los Angeles, and she didn't argue. We stayed in the hospital the rest of the morning, because despite how pissed off I was, I wanted to make sure Izzy was going to get better and that she was clear to travel. Plus Mama had been down in the offices, ripping all of the hospital management team new assholes until lunch and we'd had to make arrangements for Anthony.

"Sit here, Sweetheart." I lowered Izzy, who clutched Anthony's memory box to her chest, onto the couch and propped her feet up on the marble table. "I'm going to pack us some things, and then we're out of here."

I left her with a brief kiss on her forehead and then jogged up the stairs to the bedroom. As quick as I could, I threw a bunch of our clothes into suitcases, almost forgetting to grab her some underwear and her favorite tennis shoes. I shoved my laptop and charger in it's bag, and grabbed Izzy's cream colored leather bookbag that I'd gotten as part of the birthday present I never got to give her. I'd seen her eyeing it in one of those catalogs designers were always sending her, but she hadn't been used to having so much money yet, and couldn't see spending over a grand on a fancy book bag, even if it did have a ridiculous amount of compartments for all of her computer and Kindle stuff.

Her eyes went wide when she saw me come down carrying my suitcase in one hand, her pink one in the other, and both computer bags over my shoulder.

"You… you kept my things?" She whispered.

I sat down on the table in front of her, and pulled her feet into my lap, removing the keds she'd gotten from the hospital gift shop, and sliding her feet into her red rhinestone covered converse. I'd constantly teased her that they were the most non-functional shoes I'd ever seen, but a young fan had hand glued on all the rhinestones and given them to her at one of her first events, and she loved them. I thought it was sweet that she wore them so much.

"Of course I kept them." I told her, tying the laces. "I told you, I knew you wouldn't leave that way. Besides," I put her feet down on the table next to me and leaned forward to place a chaste kiss on her lips. The first time I'd kissed them in months. "You left all your favorite stuff at my place." I teased.

She barked out a laugh, tears rolling down her face, and wrapped her arms around my neck. "I love you, Duke."

"I love you too, Iz."

* * *

It was just about dinner time when we disembarked in Nashville, and I handed Mama and Izzy into the town car. I scooted in next to Iz, and enjoyed her leaning all over me to look out of the window as we made the drive from Nashville to Franklin. We dropped Ma off at her place, and she kissed us both on the cheek, promising to stop by tomorrow with Dad so he could meet Iz, and then we made the short drive from her property to mine.

Izzy gasped as we drove through the high fence and down the winding road through the trees. She was leaned over me again, staring with her face practically pressed to the glass, and I trailed a hand down her back, feeling practically peaceful now that I was home and I had Iz with me.

"Is that a stable?" She practically squealed, squinting way off to the side of the house.

I grinned, still basking in the fact that I was home, and nodded, eyes closed. "There aren't any horses in it just yet, but I'd like to breed them when I get the time. Maybe you can help me choose a pair to start with?"

When we finally pulled around the front of the house, I took a deep breath and felt pounds of stress just roll off. Izzy stared all around her, not knowing where to look first. "You live here?" She whispered, as I led her up the stairs to the front door. I put in the passcode and thoroughly enjoyed the moment the lock beeped and clicked open.

"This house is my baby." I told her, stepping aside so she could enter first. Excitedly, I wanted to know what she thought of every little thing, to see if she recognized any of the things she'd picked out for her dream house.

"Oh, Edward."

I laughed at her, "Sweetheart, why are you still whispering."

"I don't know. It's just so pretty."

The foyer was circular, with curved stairwells arching around either side and meeting at the top. The walls were painted a cool gray and the banisters and stairs were a rich dark wood, and the floors were ivory and gray streaked marble.

"Come on, I'll give you the tour of downstairs for now, we'll tackle upstairs later.

I took her through the foyer and into the formal living room, the chefs kitchen, which she looked like she didn't want to leave, and the formal dining room, which was still furniture free because I just hadn't gotten around to it. Then we went down into the basement and I showed her the more casual living area, which I tended to use the most. She rolled her eyes at the 76-inch curved television screen, but didn't poke fun. I also showed her the music room where my piano sat amidst several guitars, and then the room past that-

"You have a recording studio in your house?!" She shrieked.

"I figure it'll help when I want to get something down really quick."

Iz trailed a finger over the tabletop equipment, then shook her head slowly, amazed I guess.

"You haven't used it yet?" She asked. I shook my head and admitted. "I haven't lived here yet, not since I had the whole house redone. Come on Darlin', almost done." I pulled her by the hand back to the main area of the basement, and to the dark tinted glass windows that took up the entire back wall. I punched in a code and the glass lightened, revealing the back yard and enclosed pool. I punched in another code, and the panels turned sideways, and all slid off to one side like Venetian blinds, leaving the entire back wall open to the outside.

"Oh my God." Iz was back to whispering as she crossed the threshold into the chilly air. To the left of the pool was the outdoor living room, all beige and brown marble with a fireplace that was open on both sides, surrounded by plump patio furniture and stakes for tiki torches. "It's gorgeous out here."

"We can light the fire and have dinner out here, if you'd like." I suggested lightly.

I studied her, waiting for a reaction, but I don't think either of us were expecting what she said.

"Can we just live here instead of LA?" Her eyes bugged and she didn't look as if she'd meant to say that out loud, but I was all over it like ticks on a hound.

"Absolutely."

She gaped, eyes widening even more. "Edward!"

"What? I mean, you pretty much lived with me before anyway, and if you still need to be in LA for work, we can just do what we've been doing and live there. I do have a house there, but it's so much quieter out here."

"You…. You…"

"What is it, Iz?"

She moved closer, grabbing one of my hands with both of hers. "You'd want to live with me still? After everything?"

"I'd be much obliged if you did, ma'am." I put as much twang in my voice as I could and dropped down to both knees in front of her, hugging her around the waist, really hamming it up. "I'm not above begging." I mumbled, into her belly. "Please, please, please."

"Are you serious right now?"

"As a heart attack." I assured her, tilting my head back to look her in the face. I never wanted her out of my sight again. "I don't care where we live, but I want us to live together."

"I… Okay." She said softly, running the fingers of both hands through my hair.

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, Jesus!" I jumped up and pulled her into a bear hug that lifted her off her feet, kissing all over her face until she giggled like mad. Damn was I glad to hear that beautiful sound again. "God, I missed you so much. I'm so glad I have you back Baby."

She looked up at me, and even though the sky was overcast and dim, she looked breath-taking in the lighting, and I squeezed her all the more tightly.

"I thought for sure you'd moved on." She said softly, with those big doe eyes of hers looking regretful.

I scoffed, and rolled my eyes at just how crazy that thought was. "Never. I ain't right without you, Iz.

* * *

As far as a peaceful night goes, we couldn't have asked for much more. Instead of eating outside in the cold, or eating down in the kitchen at the bar, I'd ordered in a couple of steaks and we had a picnic in bed, just like we used to do, though we were fully clothed this time, and I sure as shit would love some of her fried chicken right now.

When we finished eating, we'd put our empty dishes on the night table, and I leaned back against the headboard. She settled in against my chest, my legs on either side of hers, and just let me hold her close to me with one arm banded around her shoulders, and the other beneath her breasts. She was embarrassed at first, because she was sitting on one of those hospital paper pad things, but I didn't give a damn if she bled on me. I'd missed her, and I was gonna hold her; that's just all there was to it.

We sat like that, not doing anything but just _being_ for a while. I figured it was best to enjoy the quiet while we could, because we were in for the mother of all shit storms soon. Between having to deal with Hunter, Bella's record label, the hospital and the media coverage of all of the above, I didn't foresee too many more quiet moments coming our way after this one for a while.

Izzy sighed when her tremors started again, and reached for Anthony's box on the nightstand. "Do you want to go through it now?" She whispered. I kissed her cheek and squeezed her tight. I don't know if I would ever be ready, but now was as ready as I was ever gonna be, I think.

"Yeah Sweetheart, now's good."

Izzy carefully drew the white box into her lap and slowly caressed the silver latch hook, hesitating. I waited, with my chin on her shoulder while she gathered her strength about her and then loosed the hook and opened the lid with one shaking hand.

The box was lined on the inside with pillowy navy blue satin. The first memento on the very top was a delicate beaded bracelet, made out of a ribbon tied into a bow, and too small for either of us to wear, with tiny beads that spelled out ' _Anthony'_ , with little hearts on either side.

Ever so gently, Izzy lifted it, heaving a deep steadying breath as she placed it onto the inside of the lid. The next thing in the box were two heart shape cards with his tiny handprints and footprints printed on them. On the back, someone had written in pretty script Anthony Alexander Masen. Already, there were hot tears streaming down my face, and I didn't want to see anymore, but I wouldn't make Iz look alone.

Beneath the cards was an envelope full of pictures, which she placed in the lid without opening, and under that, were the small diaper and hat that he'd so briefly worn, the tiniest blue stuffed teddy bear with wings, the blanket he'd been delivered into and the smaller one he'd been wrapped in afterwards.

With a whimper, Izzy slammed the lid shut, turned into me and wept heartbreaking keening sobs. She wrapped her arms around my neck and clung to me, while I held her just as tightly, crying into her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Sweetheart. I'm so sorry."

"My baby," Was all she cried, over and over. "Oh God, my poor baby."

* * *

The next morning was as miserable as miserable could get. Iz and I both look like something the cat dragged in and then hung up wet. Our eyes were red and puffy, and Izzy's trembling was a whole hell of a lot worse. We woke up fairly early, but ended up staying in bed just holding each other for hours.

"You've got to eat something, Iz." I told her when we finally came down for a late breakfast. More like lunch, really, at this point. I'd had groceries delivered because there was no way we were leaving our bubble of a safe haven today. Not after last night.

"I'm not hungry." She protested softly, staring down at the marble top of the kitchen island from the leather swivel bar stool she was seated on.

I inched over to her and turned the seat of the stool so I could stand between her knees and rubbed her bare legs briskly. How she could stand to wear these tiny black cotton shorts, I don't know because they weren't much bigger than underwear and the house was freezing this morning. "If I make you Granny Cullen's famous French Toast Bake, will you try to eat, just a little?" I begged against her lips. "Please, Sweetheart, for me?"

Instead of answering, she wrapped her arms around my waist and kissed me. I let her, needing to feel reconnected, probably just as much as she did, after all this time and all the shitty things that had happened. I basked in that fact that nothing in our bond felt like it had changed much. I deepened the kiss and still felt that feeling of coming home after a hard day, the feeling of comfort and love and acceptance. There was a taint of sadness now, but everything good was still there, right where it had always been.

When she finally pulled away, she kissed me once more, just a peck beneath my chin. "I'll try." She whispered softly.

I pressed a kiss to her brow. "Thank you."

She was quiet while I preset the oven and whipped all of the ingredients together. I was too, and it was an awkward silence that was new for us. Maybe everything wasn't the same because I didn't really know what to say to her and I don't know why that is. This was Isabella. My Izzy, the same as she's been since the moment I first held her in my arms and kissed her on that patio. But then, maybe she wasn't. She'd been through a Hell I could only imagine, and I wasn't even sure what she remembered and what she didn't.

"Do you wanna go into Nashville today?" I asked hesitantly. I didn't think she would, and in all honesty, I hated the thought of us leaving the house, but I had to say something to cut into that heavy silence. She shrugged, not meeting my eyes as she answered. "Yes, but no. Not while I'm still all shaky and weepy. Do you mind if we just hang around the house for a while?"

"Of course, Iz." I curled a finger under her chin and and drew her lips to mine, needing that positive feeling again. "Whatever you need Darlin'." I kissed her softly, lingering because I was so damn grateful to even be able to do that again. "I love you."

"I love you too, Edward." She leaned in, sliding her hands underneath my shirt, and I groaned at the feel of her fingers against the bare skin of my torso. "I missed your hands on me." I whispered, before slanting my mouth over hers and nipping her bottom lip with my teeth.

"Tease." She whimpered, scratching my back with her nails.

"Says you." I growled, nipping again. "You know what your scratchin' does to me."

"That's why I do it." She admitted, scratching deeper. I hissed, my back arching and shuddering involuntarily.

"Damn it, Iz." I caged her in and took her mouth with every bit of frustration and need that had been pent up for the last 6 months. Bending her back over the island, my tongue parted her pillow soft full lips to tangle with hers and it was like tasting sweet fresh water again after being thirsty for too damn long. I had the distant thought that we shouldn't be doing this now, but one of her hands tangled in my hair, tugging, and the other scratched at my back again and I was lost. Need flared hot and hard, insistent, before I finally gathered some sense and pulled away.

"Just sinful." I whispered against her neck.

"I've missed this." She moaned breathily. "Missed you."

"I've missed you too Sweetheart, so much. I about went insane and I'm sorry, but you are never allowed out of my sight again."

"I never want to _be_ out of your sight again, Duke."

"Good," I trailed hot open mouthed kisses along the column of her neck. "Because from now on, consider you and I joined at the hip."

"Not… a hardship." She panted, clenching my hair in her fist and tugging.

"Not at all." I agreed, snaking my arms around her waist. I pulled back to look at her, lips kiss swollen and brown eyes bright with something other than tears for the first time since I'd found her. She was so God damned beautiful. I leaned in to kiss her again when the doorbell rang. "God damn it." I muttered, moving to reluctantly let go of her, but when my hand brushed against the side of her breast she flinched hard. "Ah!"

"Iz? What is it?"

She had her head down, and both arms tenderly cradling her breasts.

"Iz?"

"The doorbell." She said, when it rang again, impatiently.

"They can fuckin' wait." I told her. "What's the matter?"

She whimpered, turning her head off to the side and still holding herself. I eased her arms away and pulled up her shirt, just as she whispered. "Milk has been coming in."

Her breasts over the top of her bra looked swollen and tight with the need to release the breast milk. Her skin was deeply indented around the fabric of her bra and the cups had small wet spots over the nipples. I knew it was probably normal for her milk to come, but it seemed like an especially cruel thing for her body to do to her now.

I ran one finger gently over the skin above her bra and it was hard to the touch. Shit. What do you even do for that?

Carefully, I covered her back up and pulled my thicker shirt off to put over her head since whoever was at the door was leaning on the bell now like a damned fool "We'll figure this out Sweetheart, just let me go kick whoever's ass is ringing my doorbell like they've lost their damn mind." I leaned in to kiss her cheek, careful not brush against her chest, and then jogged off to answer the door before the poor bell shorted out.

"Alice, you stop that!" I heard my mother's voice chastising as I neared the front door. It was a giant Gothic iron monstrosity that I'd picked out myself when I had the house built. It was a wide rounded double door that was about two thirds mirrored glass covered by iron scroll work. I could see out, but no crazies or delivery people or annoying little sisters could see in.

I sighed, seeing Alice and her shit for brains boyfriend standing next to Rose and my mother as Alice leaned on the damn doorbell again. It hadn't taken her long at all to find out I was home. No doubt she'd have a list of things she wanted as long as my left arm.

"Nobody told you to come chaperone." She said snidely.

"Be respectful to my Mama." I said, wrenching open the heavy door. "And for God sake's, lay off the doorbell!" I smacked her hand away from the button and moved aside to let them in, pushing Jasper aside when he went to walk in ahead of my mother. He knew better, the shit. He was lucky I didn't smell that tell-tale chemical smell on him. At the first sign of him being high, he was out of here, especially around Izzy and Rose.

"Edward!" Rosalie squealed, launching herself at me. I grinned and squeezed her tight, lifting her up off her feet like I'd been doing since she was old enough to walk. "Hi baby sis. What are you doing out of school?"

"We get a two week break for Thanksgiving." She answered as I kissed her on her forehead over her wispy blonde bangs and set her down.

"Good morning. No work today Mama?" I leaned down to kiss her cheek, and then my elder sister's. Mama was dressed in jeans, boots and a sweater under her coat, instead of the usual power suit she wore when she worked. I took her coat, and Rose's and Alice's and hung them in the entryway closet. Jasper wasn't wearing one, but his shit kickers were filthy, and he scowled at me when I made him leave them at the door.

"Really Edward, show some class. Why aren't you wearing a shirt?" Tiny Alice hugged me delicately, like I was covered in sweat and would sully her uppity outfit of khaki pants, and pink chenille sweater over a crisp white blouse. She topped the outfit off with pearl jewelry and expensive looking heels. The girl was beautiful with her baby blue eyes and long dark hair, but her attitude was as stuck up as stuck up could get, so how she ended up with Jasper, who had a substance abuse problem, took money from her and was currently dressed in jeans with a giant hole from knee to thigh, I had no idea.

"It's my house, Alice. I'll walk around in just my boots if I feel like it. Mama, you off today?" I asked again, draping an arm over Mama's shoulder and the other over Rosie's and leading them towards the back of the house. "I went in early for a couple of hours and then took the rest of the day off. I wanted to come check on you and Isabella."

"Hmm, yes." Alice said, distastefully. "I think it's time I got to meet this _Izzy_ of yours. What kind of grown woman goes by _Izzy_ anyway?"

"Now hold on." I stopped and turned to face Alice and Jasper, staring at both of them hard as Mama continued on to the kitchen, taking Rose with her and staying out of it for now. "'Izzy' is the nickname I gave her, and you will _not_ disrespect her in my house. If either of you are anything less than on your best behavior, I will toss you both out on your ears, and you won't be allowed back in here, am I clear?"

Jasper shrugged, and Alice rolled her eyes at me, scoffing as she tried to walk around. I grabbed her arm and looked her right in her big mean eyes. "Allison Marie. I'm as serious as the day is long. You show your ass and you can find another way to finish paying for that house and that tacky yellow car of yours. You hear?"

She glared at me and stomped one foot like the spoiled child she was. "Okay, Edward, I'll be nice to your little girlfriend. Let me go!"

"I mean it." I said again, before turning and heading into the kitchen. Mama was taking the oven mitts from Izzy, who had been about to remove breakfast from the oven, and shooing her away to go sit back at the bar. "I've got it Sweetheart, you should be sitting."

Iz walked slowly back onto the barstool, and I could tell from the way she moved that she was sore. Despite the pained expression on her face, she was entirely too cute with her ponytail curly, bushy and wild on top of her head, and shapely legs hanging out of the bottom of my shirt for me to like the fact that Jasper was in here. My shirt swallowed her, hanging down to mid thigh, and thankfully covering up all the good parts, though there wasn't much to be done about the clearly visible shape of that bubble butt of hers. Alice and I both saw Jasper looking, and I punched him in the back, hard, before helping Izzy up on the stool.

"Okay, Sweetheart?" I murmured, cursing myself for not having a dining room or kitchen table with normal height chairs she could have sat in. She nodded, but I'd heard her breath hitch when she sat down. Ma dished up a healthy size of the French Toast Bake and slid the plate over to Izzy, pouring some maple syrup into a dish and heating it in the microwave.

"Izzy, this is my sister Alice, and her boyfriend Jasper."

"Fiancé." Alice corrected, sticking her left hand out for Izzy to shake, so that she'd notice her ring, I'm sure. One I'd really hoped I hadn't somehow inadvertently paid for, because I hadn't given her or him any money any time recently the thing was way bigger than he could afford, and she didn't work. It wouldn't have been the first time Jasper had stolen something of mine and sold it. Thankfully Iz was well familiar with my sister's shenanigans, even though they hadn't met before and took it all in stride.

"Congratulations." She said politely, shaking the offered hand. "and nice to meet you."

Alice said nothing, and before I could call her on being rude, Jasper brushed by her and picked up Izzy's hand eagerly. "Pleased to meet you Isabella." He said, bringing her hand up to his lips. "I loved that last music video of yours, you were beautiful."

One of the ones where she'd been high and half naked. She winced and leaned back into the bar to put some space between she and Jasper. "Ah, thank you?"

"And this is my baby sister Rosalie." I reached for her, to bring her forward, and she fought me a little, hiding behind my back. I smacked her hand away from her mouth where she was nervously chewing on her thumbnail and grinned at Izzy. "Did I mention she's a huge fan of yours?"

Rose was staring at her with giant blue eyes, and I could feel her hand shaking in mine. "I… I."

I yanked, pulling her forward past Jasper, and Izzy, sweetheart that she was, pulled her into a hug. "It's very nice to meet you Rosalie. Your brother brags about you all the time."

Rose looked about ready to faint, and blatantly laughing at her, I helped her onto the barstool next to Iz while the microwave beeped and Ma removed the container of syrup, hip checking Jasper away so she could hand Izzy the dish and a fork. Iz smiled at her warmly as Ma kissed her cheek. "Thank you."

"You're welcome Sweetheart. Go on now, eat. Jasper, you get out of the girl's breathing space."

 _Yes, please do, before I string you up by the balls_.

Alice glared daggers at Jasper, and then turned her glare on Izzy, like it was my girlfriend's fault her "fiancé" behaved like an idiot.

I knew that look, and sent Alice a glare of my own in warning. _Don't start._

She ignored me as all the rest of us helped ourselves to breakfast. Or brunch, as it were. That's just how my family was, everybody always ate over everybody else's house, so it was a good thing I'd made a big dish. I dug into my plate like I was a man starved, and Alice, the only one not eating, turned that snooty look of hers on me again.

"Christ, Edward, doesn't she feed you?" she asked, snidely.

I glared at her, pointing my fork in her face. "Mind your business Alice. We haven't eaten yet; we were up late."

"I see." She drawled, giving Izzy's clothing a meaningful look. My fork hit the countertop with a clang but before I could open my mouth, Izzy's hand gripped my thigh. I sighed and, for her, tried to ignore the fact that my sister was being a real heifer.

"Allison Marie." Mama snapped. "This is your last warning about being respectful in your brother's house."

Alice rolled her eyes and crossed petulant arms over her chest. "I'm a grown woman, Mama. What are you gonna do, spank me?"

"You're never too grown to get laid the hell out." Ma bit out, tired of her oldest child's attitude.

"Whoops," I laughed, choking on a mouthful of bread, eggs and potatoes. Alice glared at the both of us, but didn't say anything else. Next to me, Izzy was starting to pick at her plate, and she hadn't even eaten half of it. She hadn't eaten much last night either, and I sighed. "Not hungry, Sweetheart?"

"I'm hungry," she answered lowly. "I just can't eat." Her arms were fidgety, and I realized her breasts were probably bothering her.

"Here." I lifted her out of the stool and walked her upstairs to our room, ignoring the people in my kitchen for the moment. "Why don't you try a hot shower, and I'll see if Mama knows anything that'll help. Later, when they all leave, we can get in the giant bath tub that I've never used, huh?

She was avoiding looking at me again, and I could see the tears she was trying to hide from me.

"Izzy? Baby?" I lifted her chin and wiped her face gently.

"I'm sorry." She whispered. "Everything hurts, and I just feel shitty and miserable."

"I think that's justified, Sweetheart." I pulled her into an awkward hug, because I was trying not to squash her sore breasts. "Go take a hot shower, see if that helps you feel a little better. If I made you a smoothie or a milkshake, do you think you could drink that?"

She hesitated, and I frowned at her. "Iz, you've got to eat something. We've got bananas and frozen raspberries."

"And peanut butter?" She asked, perking a little.

I smiled, relieved she finally sounded interested in eating something. If it got her to eat, I'd make her all the damn raspberry banana peanut butter shakes she wanted. "And peanut butter." I agreed, leaning down to peck her on the lips. "I'll go make that, you unwind for a bit."

"Thank you, Edward. Seriously."

"It's just a milkshake, Sweetheart. I'd do anything for you, you know that."

Line line line line line line line line line

"Mama, can I talk to you?" I stuck my head in the kitchen and motioned for her to come into the dining room with me. Rose was still eating, but I noticed Alice and her freeloader weren't there anymore. I sighed, knowing they hadn't gone out of the front door so they were doing God knows what in the rest of my house.

Ma looked up at me from where she'd been loading the dishwasher, caramel curls falling prettily around her face. "Sure, Sweetheart. What's wrong?

"Izzy's been having some trouble with… ah… her milk coming in."

Mama sighed, shaking her head sadly. "Poor thing. Is she engorged?"

"Come again?" I asked her, scratching the back of my head.

"Engorged. Are her breasts hard and sore?"

I felt my face flushing hot, and Mama rolled her green eyes at me, exasperated. "There just breasts, boy. You've seen them often enough, I'm sure."

"Yeah, yeah." I mumbled. "They're swollen and they hurt. You know what to do for that?"

"They'll be painful for a while until she either pumps or lets the milk dry up. Do you have any Cabbage?" She asked, pushing by me to look in the refrigerator.

"Cabbage?" What the hell? "Ma, what-" I broke off when I heard a faint crash and Izzy's yells floated down the stairs. I couldn't make out what she was screaming at, but I took off through the house.

" _Stop! Stop it, please_!" I could make out now, taking the stairs two at a time and cursing my need to buy such a big place. If Jasper had touched her, I was going to take my rifle to his crotch. " _Duke! Duke! EDWARD!"_

"Why didn't you cover her mouth? Idiot!" I heard my sister chastise.

My bedroom door was shut, and I burst through the door before I could even get it open all the way, splintering the doorjamb. In a half second I took in the scene and charged at Jasper like a bull seeing red. He was standing by the open bathroom door, standing behind Izzy, who was crying and dressed only in a towel, hemming her up while Alice stood over by the bed, Anthony's open memory box in her hands.

Jasper panicked, and shoved Izzy at me, trying to rush by me as I caught her in one arm. I reached the other one out and caught by the neck, slamming him back into the wall as Izzy ducked around me. " _Have you lost your fucking mind_?" I roared at him, swinging a right hook at his jaw powered by every drop of rage I was feelin'. He must have been completely insane to step foot in my house and lay hands on my woman. He made like he was going to come at me and I nailed him again, in the nose this time.

He crumpled, holding his face, and had the smarts to stay his ass on the carpet. I turned to deal with other damn fool, but Izzy was wrestling Alice's purse away from her and dumping shit out on the bed. Alice tried to reach over her shoulder, but Iz turned and shoved her roughly to the floor. I went over to the bed and pulled the things I recognized out of the mess. A beaded bracelet, a tiny angel teddy bear and a small piece of card stock with the tiniest set of hand and footprints on it.

Wordlessly, jaw clenched so tight that my teeth were clicking, I put his things back in Anthony's box, shuffling through to make sure nothing else was missing. Thankfully, the envelope with the pictures was still sealed shut. "Is that everything?" I asked Izzy quietly, shutting the box and latching it. She nodded, snatching the box from me and kneeling on the floor, curling her entire body around it as she cried.

I left her there for the moment, and turned my head to stare at my sister, who didn't look the least bit ashamed as she hauled herself to her feet. I don't understand how she could have turned into such a shitty excuse for a person. I'd made excuses for her spoiled behavior, and continued to cater to her, because she was my baby sister. But this was the last straw.

Without saying a word or sparing her another glance I went over and hauled Jasper up by the neck of his shirt, grabbed her by the arm and towed them both out of the room, past my mother who was standing in the doorway with a hand over her mouth, and down the stairs to the front door. Wrenching it open, I shoved them both out into the winter air, grabbed Alice's coat, and threw it and Jasper's boots out behind them.

"I'm ashamed to call you my sister." I told Alice lowly, wanting to rant and rage, but at the same time just needing them gone.

"I'm done. Don't you ever, either one of you, darken my doorway again."

I slammed the door shut on her cry of "But Edward!" and jogged back up the stairs to my Isabella, who didn't deserve any of this shit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

I'd be changing the gate code as soon as I could get my hands on my phone. I'd give it to my parents later, along with the explicit instructions to never ever give it to my bitch of a sister. Whether she'd intended to keep Anthony's things or sell them, I don't know, but either way, what she'd done here was unforgivable.

I found Izzy curled up on the floor, still in her towel, with her head in Mama's lap. She held our baby's memory box tightly to her chest as tears leaked from eyes that were squeezed tightly shut. Mama looked almost as miserable as she ran a hand over Iz's hair, crooning softly in that way some mothers do.

When she saw me, she relinquished her spot to me, kissing us both on the forehead before she let herself out of our room.

"Iz, Baby girl. I'm so sorry. Come here, Sweetheart."

I pulled her into my lap and held her close. She didn't move and didn't say anything for a long long while, until finally, she muttered something about her shower. I helped her up, and then towed her through the bathroom to the ginormous walk-in closet. I showed her the secret compartment in the middle island that was hidden quite well. I showed her where it housed a safe that had a dummy code that opened a traditional looking safe full of fake paperwork and then I showed her the emergency code that would set off a silent alarm that would bring the police, and lastly I showed her how you opened the real safe. It used a code, but the code also had to be put in by the right fingerprints. It lifted the entire top of the island, revealing a safe that took up the entire length and width of the space, but had a depth of only 6 inches.

With a shuddering sigh, Bella placed the memory box inside, and then gripped my hand tight as I shut the lid, locking it in.

"They aren't allowed back." I said finally, unable to take her silence anymore as we walked back out into the bathroom.

"They're family." She said softly, not looking at me as she dropped her towel and opened the shower door. I stalled her with a hand on her arm, trying desperately not to look at the expanse of naked flesh that I'd craved so much as I insisted firmly. "It doesn't matter. This is your home now too, Iz. And they violated both you and our home. _They aren't allowed back_."

She nodded, still quiet, and stole away into the shower, which was still hot (as well it should have been, considering the small fortune I'd spent on the hot water heaters in this place).

I was frustrated at the turn our morning had taken when I'd really just wanted to focus on helping Iz feel better. On reconnecting and helping the _both_ of us feel better. But my sister went and showed she had no respect for other people, not even those in her family, by trying to steal my son's things. I would never forgive her for that. Ever.

While Isabella showered, I sat on the bathroom counter, with my head against the mirror. I knew I was hovering like a nervous Mama, but I couldn't stand to walk away from her right now, not even in the house.

Iz didn't speak the rest of the day, other than to thank my Mama for the cabbage leaves she brought over for Iz to crush the veins of and stuff in her bra. It was supposed to help dry the milk up. Damndest thing I ever heard, but if it worked, who was I to argue? She dressed in another of my shirts and a pair of my basketball shorts and climbed into the middle of the bed and drank her raspberry banana peanut butter milk shake down to the bottom.

I lay beside her, and she wrapped both her arms around my right one, and we lay like that for the rest of the day, watching Netflix on the plasma encased in the wall across from the bed, only moving when Izzy needed to change out her pads and check her bleeding, and I used those times to make her another milk shake and bring her fresh cool cabbage leaves.

This was our pattern for the next week or so. Ma came by after work a couple times to check on us, keeping my father and Rose away until Iz felt better, and almost every time, she found us either curled up in our bedroom or downstairs on the massive sectional with blankets, watching mindless television. The nights were rough. Izzy had nightmares, and often woke up with tremors so bad, the bed rattled, but the days were a little better. Even with the tremors off and on, the bleeding and pain were just about gone, and her appetite was increasing.

On the following Monday, we were forced to burst our little bubble of solitude. Iz had a follow up appointment with both a gynecologist, and a physician who specialized in detox, so we dressed and headed down into the garage.

"Christ." Iz was whispering again as she stared at my beast of a truck. I grinned at her and unlocked the door to my custom painted mocha brown Toyota Tundra Crewmax. "Was a house on wheels really necessary Duke?" She asked, jacking an eyebrow at me.

"Country boys and their trucks." I said simply, opening the door. "Wait until you see the inside."

Iz moved closer, and I grabbed her around the waist and boosted her up into the driver's seat so she could take a look around. She was fully loaded with Bose speakers, moon roof, GPS, back up camera, satellite radio. Any toy they offered, I added. Iz whistled lowly. "I think we can both fit in one of these seats." She joked. And she was probably close, the damn thing was ginormous. "Want to drive?" I dangled the keys over her lap. One thing about my Iz, she was a nut about cars, just like I was. It was, after all, how she'd seen my Charger. Girl had a subscription to 3 different car magazines.

Izzy's eyes lit up, and she hesitantly reached for the keys. "Can I?"

"Of course." If I'd let her drive the Porsche in LA traffic, this was nothing. I pressed the keys into her hand and jogged around to the other side, buckling myself in while Iz familiarized herself with the dash. I grinned at her when she had to raise the seat all the way up and scoot it all the way forward so she could reach the pedals. She glared at me playfully, and I reached across her to program the position in the second memory slot so she'd just have to push the '2' when she got in and the seat would adjust on it's own.

The drive into Nashville was as lighthearted a time we'd had yet since I found her. We talked and laughed while music streamed from my Spotify app. We made it to the doctor's office for her first appointment in good time, and we both pulled hats down low over our foreheads as we hustled into the building. Our appointment was early enough that the place wasn't crowded, but the facility was a high end one, used by a lot of wealthy people so privacy was a big deal here, and nobody bothered us.

It was only a 5-minute wait after filling out her paperwork before we got called back, and hand in hand, we followed the nurse to an exam room.

The nurse, who introduced herself as Robbie, took Iz's vital signs, handed her a gown to change into and then left us to wait for the doctor. I stood in the corner, eyes closed and too anxious to sit, trying to calm myself because Isabella was probably nervous enough.

"Duke?" Izzy's voice was soft over the sound of the paper crinkling beneath her as she fidgeted. I opened my eyes and saw that she looked completely terrified, holding her hand out to me. I stepped into the space between her thighs, and immediately, she pressed her face into the front of my shirt. "Sorry." She mumbled, shaking.

"I wish you'd quit apologizing." I said as she sniffled. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."

"I feel so…"

"Nervous?" I asked, when she didn't finish her sentence.

"And clingy. And weepy" She added.

"I like that you need me." I confessed, rubbing both her arms. "And I never complain about having you close enough to touch. And being weepy… well Sweetheart that's understandable. It's only been a week or so."

"Yeah, but-"

"Shh. No buts. You grieve how you need to, Iz. I'm here for whatever you need."

She pulled back to look me in the eye, chin resting on my chest. "I need _you_." She said softly. I smiled, and kissed her lips. "Baby, you have me."

A knock on the door had us pulling apart, just as the doctor, a lady even shorter than Izzy, walked into the room. "Ms. Swan? Hi, I'm Jane."

"Bella, please." Iz said, reaching out to shake the woman's hand.

"And I'm assuming this is the Mr. Masen you put down as your emergency contact?"

"Edward, ma'am." I corrected, and she shook my hand as well.

"Alright Bella," The doctor spoke as she guided Iz back on the bed and covered her legs with a sheet. "This is simply a progress check, so to speak. We'll do a quick exam to make sure everything looks okay, and I'll ask you some questions, and I'm sure you have some for me. Sound good?" When Iz simply nodded she said. "First thing first, any pain when I press here?" She pressed a hand deeply into Izzy's stomach and I winced, but Izzy just shook her head.

"It's a little tender, but it doesn't really hurt."

"Great." Jane pressed around a little more and said. "It seems like your uterus has retracted down to normal size, which is good. Now how's the bleeding? Your chart says you had a moderate amount in the beginning."

"Mostly just spotting."

"Good." She opened the front snaps on Iz's gown and pressed and prodded at her breasts. "And here? Is that painful?"

"Very," Iz winced.

"What have you been wearing at home?"

"My regular bras with cabbage leaves…"

"The cabbage leaves are good if you're aiming to dry up your milk." Jane moved again, directing her to foot her feet in the stirrups while she pulled a covered tray table over, and begin to assemble… God knows what the hell that thing was, but I can assume where it goes, since she lubed it up with KY. "I suggest you wear sports bras and then wrap ace bandaging on top of that. It won't be comfortable, but it will help the engorgement even more quickly." I moved to stand where I couldn't see and focused on any and everything else as Jane began to talk Iz through the exam. I heard a clicking noise and then Izzy grunted. "Sorry, Bella." Jane apologized. "I'll be quick."

And she was, because before I could get to Izzy to hold her hand, she was sliding the plastic duckbill thing out and patting Izzy's knee. "I really don't see any bleeding Bella, and your cervix is completely closed, which is good. Your body seem to be healing rather nicely."

Izzy nodded, and I helped her sit up. "Does… does that mean I won't have any problems with pregnancy in the future?"

Fuck, I hadn't thought of that. I hadn't thought much about children at all until Anthony. I tuned out and thought about that for a second. Did I want children with Iz? Little girls or boys with Izzy's curls and my weird ass shade of brown hair? With the love for food and cars that we both shared? With their Izzy's playful personality, and smarts, and talent? Abso-fucking-lutely. If Jay had snatched that from us too-

"I don't see anything to indicate any lasting damage." Jane answered. "I don't know too much about what was in your system, but based on the bloodwork they took at the hospital, as far as your reproductive system, everything looked okay. The only thing I would say going forward is that you have to be wary of early labor. After the first trimester you'll have to be monitored frequently, and if I see any signs that indicate your cervix is opening, we would put a cerclage in, basically tying it shut to prevent another early labor."

"Is that a surgery?" I asked, voiced pitched higher than usual.

"A simple one, yes." Jane answered, and I swallowed hard, unsure of how I felt about Izzy being pregnant and having any kind of surgical procedures done.

"Understand," the blonde woman continued. "that it may or may not be a necessity. We can assume your body went into labor early because of the drugs that were in your system but due to the unusual nature of the drug, that can't be said for certain, and since you weren't examined during your pregnancy we can't say whether or not cervical insufficiency was a contributing factor. The last doctor you saw assumed that it was, based on the fact that you had Chorioamnionitis, and that usually-"

"Wait, chorio-what?" Izzy interrupted.

"Chorioamnionitis. It's an intra-uterine infection."

"Nobody said anything about an infection!" Iz's voice was getting higher, distressed. I rubbed a hand down her back, trying to help her keep calm.

"Your last doctor sent your placenta out for testing and you had a pretty significant infection that's usually caused by your bacteria that enters by way of the vagina when your cervix is open for any prolonged period of time." Jane sat down at the computer in the corner of the room and started flipping through documents while I gripped Izzy's shaking hand in mine.

"You were put on some pretty heavy IV antibiotics when you were admitted since your white blood cell count was high enough to indicate a severe infection, so that's why you didn't get treated separately. Other than that, if you have digital charting, the test results would have shown up there if no one called you."

"I don't…" Iz stopped and took a shuddering sigh. "I don't have access to any digital charting that I know of."

Jane turned back to the computer and flipped through more files. "I already took a swab of your cervix, but I'd like to draw blood again to insure that you don't have an infection still. Other than that, the only tests that would have resulted after your discharge are your STI panels." Iz stilled under my hand as the doctor continued on. "It looks like you had a full scale panel to check for all STIs to include HIV, AIDS, and Hepatitis. All negative."

Izzy and I both let out deep breaths. Thank you God.

Jane turned back into her chair to face us. "Alright. Those things being said, I don't see any problem with you attempting to conceive if that's what you choose to do, however I caution you to wait at least 3 months to give your body time to fully heal. You're safe to resume intercourse since your cervix has close and your bleeding has stopped, so I recommend birth control until then, and after such time if you are ready to conceive, that's perfectly fine. If and when you make the decision to get off of the birth control, I'd like to see you in my office before you do so."

"Okay." Iz answered quietly, and I knew we'd be discussing this at length later.

"Now, a couple more things. How are you feeling other than the physical, Bella? Feeling pretty miserable right now is normal, but do you at any time feel like your emotions are not appropriate for what you've been through? Or that you need help coping beyond the support system you currently have?"

"No ma'am." She answered quietly, leaning into me.

"Any thoughts at all of harming yourself or anybody else?"

"No ma'am."

"Alrighty then. I see that you were previously on Depo-Provera. Unless you'd like to switch methods, we can get you set up with that before you leave today?"

"That's fine." Izzy murmured, shooting me a weird look.

"Good." Jane removed her glasses and patiently folded her hands in her lap. "Do either of you have any questions for me?"

We both shook our heads and thanked the doctor who excused herself and said she'd send the nurse along to draw blood and give Izzy her shot.

"What's up, Sweetheart?" I cuddled her into my chest. "You alright?"

"I'm okay." She whispered, leaning into me. "I'm okay."

The nurse didn't take long at all, and she took Iz's blood quickly and didn't say a word or make a face at the fact that Iz had her face buried in my chest the whole time, gripping me tightly with her free arm and she had to maneuver around the both of us. She gave Izzy her birth control shot, in the arm, warned us to use condoms if we had sex in the next 7 days, just to be safe, and told us we could go as soon as Izzy got dressed.

Iz sighed as the door shut. "I thought she was going to have to give me that shot in the butt." She said lowly, sliding off the exam table. "Is it still sore?" I asked her, lifting the side of her gown to look. Her butt was still covered in bruises, but they were older looking now, mostly greenish instead of black and blue. I ran both hands over the globes of her butt, because I couldn't just look and not touch.

Izzy yelped and whirled away from me, shooting me a scandalized look. "Edward Anthony, did you just feel me up in the doctor's office?"

"Um…. Maybe?" I grinned at her, real innocent like. "Come back here so I can do it again."

She fought it, but her face broke out into a smile before she covered it with her hand. "Do I have to send you out of the room so I can get dressed?"

"No ma'am." I said, grinning still, as I closed in on her. "I'll be good."

Iz was still giggling as we headed to the front desk to check out ten minutes later. I'd let her get dressed only after her laughing from my tickling got too loud. I waited by the door, hat pulled low while she finished up, and then we rode the elevator up, hand in hand for her next appointment.

* * *

Iz said she felt like cooking so we headed straight home instead of stopping for lunch like we originally planned. This time, I drove, since Izzy's tremors were back.

"The good thing," she said as she fiddled with the radio. "Is that I didn't walk out of this with a dependence problem."

I nodded. The doctor had taken a closer look at the chemical makeup of the drug Izzy had been given and asked her question after question for over half an hour. He figured that since the drug never produced a pleasurable feeling for her, there was minimal to no dopamine interaction, and so no chemical dependency. The tremors, he said, were likely nerve damage from either places she'd been incorrectly stabbed with a needle, or from the drug itself. He didn't know if it would go away or not. He drew blood as well to see if the drug was fully out of her system, and that would let him know if it was a withdrawal symptom, but he doubted it.

My poor girl was a mess after all those fucking needles; jumpy like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I wish now that we'd taken my old truck with the bench seat so I could haul her up to my side, but this one had dark tinted windows so I'd chosen it for privacy.

"What do you want for dinner?" She asked me, still fiddling with the radio. I opened the Spotify app and dropped my phone into her lap. "Baby girl, you don't have to cook."

"I want to." She insisted logging out of my Spotify account and into hers. Immediately my voice sang out over the speakers and I gaped at her.

"What?" She giggled. "I wanted to see if there was anything new."

"There's not." I shook my head, punching the next button on the truck's display. "I'll sing for you anytime you want Beautiful, but it's weird as hell listening to myself on the radio." Then I stared at said radio in bizarre awe. "How in the hell does it go from me to Shania Twain?"

Izzy laughed at me good and hard, and hit the next button again. Sugarland was next… much better. As Jennifer's voice crooned, Iz lowered the volume and turned to me. "What are we doing for Thanksgiving Thursday?"

"When I'm home, usually we all go to Mama's, but I understand if you wanna stay ho-"

"We can go." She said, settling back in her seat.

I stole a glance at her real quick. "You sure, Iz? We don't have to. It's gonna be a house full of people and Ma will understand."

"We can go." She said again. "I think it'll it be better not to be in the house alone on the holiday."

And with that, I let it go. "Okay Baby, we'll go."

It wasn't too long before we pulled up at the house and I helped her down before we headed into the house and I hung up our coats. Iz washed her hands and started rifling around in the refrigerator and I planted my ass at the bar to watch.

"Babe?" She called, head still in the refrigerator. "About this house…"

I grinned, wondering if she'd finally noticed. "What is it Sweetheart?"

She withdrew from the fridge with a huge package of chicken and a milk carton and then started rooting around in the cabinets for spices next.

"It's um…. The double ovens, the gray walls, circular foyer, the outdoor fireplace, the very specific model of tub. I can't help but think it's… very 'me'." She observed. I leaned back on my stool, arms folded over my chest, waiting for her to look at me. "So it is."

"Did you buy it this way?" She asked slowly.

"Nope." I drawled.

She froze, hand mid air in front of a jar of garlic powder. "How long have you had this house Duke?"

"Eight months, give or take."

Still, she didn't turn and look at me. She lowered her hand, bracing it on the counter in front of her. "Did you… um… Did you…"

"Build this house with you in mind?" I finished for her, willing her to just fucking turn around. "Yes."

She whirled, dropping a little plastic shaker of who knows what spice and stared at me with wide wet eyes. I leaned over the island and crooked my finger at her. "Come here Darlin'."

Iz made her way to me slowly, looking ready to take off at any moment, so just to be on the safe side, I grabbed her hand and pulled her the rest of the way to me. By now, tears were streaming down both sides of her face. "Duke." She said softly. "Edward, you…"

"I love you, is what." I hauled her up into my lap and wiped her tears away.

"My book. You have my book!" She sobbed. "Edward, what did you do?"

"Built us a house?" I said baldly, clutching her to me. "Why are you crying?"

"Duke! You built my dream house!"

Once Iz was practically living with me back in Los Angeles, I noticed this giant ratty sketchbook that she brought out to work on every once in a while. When I asked her to show it to me, she'd sat in my lap at the kitchen table as she flipped through the book and told me about how she and her mother had lived in sub-par apartments all her life, and before her mother got sick, she and Iz were obsessed with HGTV and they would talk about what they'd want in their dream house. Once Izzy started trying to get a record deal, she started to put a book together, promising her mother she would build her that dream house. Unfortunately, her mother passed before she could get signed, but Iz continued working on her book until it was full to bursting.

It had everything from pictures of sparkly tile, and the design she'd wanted it inlaid amongst the other tile which I had put in the shower, along with her crazy arrangement of waterfall and steam showerheads in the ceilings and walls. She'd planned out practically every detail, and I put every single one of them into the house.

I chuckled a bit, honestly having expected this reaction, just not to this extreme. "Should I not have?"

"What if… how did you know I was coming back?"

"Izzy. Come on now Sweetheart, hush. Isabella, listen to me." Maybe it was a bad idea to have this conversation now because she was crying and shaking and hiccupping. "Izzy." I tried again. "Shh, Darlin'. Listen now. I always knew we were meant to be together. Always. And I wanted to do this for you. I knew that whatever happened, it had to have been bad, but I wanted you to see when you came back that I'm still serious about us. I'm still serious about you."

Instead of calming down, Iz cried and cried into my neck while I rubbed her back all the while, wondering if this was too much for her. Initially I'd bought the land with the intention of proposing to her, showing her the house and then us undertaking the project together, but when she up and disappeared, I'd needed the overseeing of the construction to keep me busy. And with the media circus that that insane nurse had caused, I'd just needed to get Izzy out of there, and I figured the house would be a comfort to her.

"Is it too much?" I whispered into her hair, terrified that this isn't what she wanted. Maybe after what Jay had done to her, she didn't want to be with anybody anymore. Maybe she just wanted to be friends. Or maybe I should have just rented us a place, or stayed in the house in LA. Maybe showing her this one was too much too fast.

"I don't deserve this!" She wailed.

"What? Iz-"

"You're being so p-perfect, and I put you through so much and now it's like I n-never left and you built me a house and I don't deserve it. It was all my fault! _That sick fuck kept me and he used me and I didn't do anything about it. I let him kill our son, Edward! How- How can you even stand to look at me_?"

Holy fuck.

"Izzy, Baby stop crying. Please. You can't think that I blame you!"

"I blame me!" She sobbed, snatching a paper towel off the stand on the island and shoving it over her mouth and nose.

"Isabella, listen to me." I grabbed another paper towel and wiped the rest of her face. "You stop this, none of this mess is your fault Darlin'. None of it. Not what happened to you, and not what happened to Anthony. Jay is to blame, and we are gonna nail his ass to the wall, you hear me?"

I don't think my words did a lick of good. Iz just bawled and cried until I worried she'd make herself sick. With no other ideas, I stood with her in my arms and carried her up to our bathroom. I turned on the shower, good and hot, and stripped us both. "Shh Baby, hold on. I got you."

By the time I got us under the spray, her wails had turned to silent tears and sniffles. I wrapped her in my arms and rocked her, letting her finally cry herself out. "Better now?" I asked after we'd gotten all wrinkled, pushing her wet curls away from her face. She shook her head without looking at me, but said "But we can get out now. I need to cook; I'm hungry."

"Izzy." I started, getting ready to tell her that she didn't have to cook and we could order out, but she stopped me. "I want to. Let's just get out." She brushed past me, eyes shuttered and face blank as she reached for a towel and walked into the bedroom.

I sighed, having no idea what in the hell just happened, but feeling that somehow Iz had just blocked me out, and I didn't like it one bit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

I tried not to stare at Iz out of the corner of my eye as I drove us over to my parents' house good and early so we could help Mama with the rest of dinner before we all got to eat. I'd warned Izzy again that Alice and Jasper would be there, as well as a bunch of Rosalie's friends from school but she'd just shrugged at me.

Girl hasn't spoken more than a handful of words to me all week. If she couldn't answer my direct questions with a head nod or shake, she used as few words as possible. It was damned infuriating, and I had no idea what I'd done to make her shut me out like this. Hadn't I told her that I still loved her? Proved that I was here for her? That I wanted her no matter what? She went from leaning on me to giving me the cold shoulder and I don't understand it.

We pulled up to my parents' place, and at least she waited for me to get the door for her. I lifted her out of the truck and held on to her for just a touch before I let her down. She muttered a thanks and made her way up to the front door with the pie she made. Rose was there in an instant, apparently over her shyness as she hugged Izzy excitedly and pulled her into the house. Iz had had a smile for her at least. Sighing heavy, I locked the truck and headed in.

Ma was waiting for me at the front door while Rosalie pulled Iz all over the house, introducing her to my Dad and her friends. Usually there was a ton more family there but I'm guessing Mama had kept them all away this year for Izzy's sake.

"What's wrong, son?" She pulled me into a hug. I gripped her tight and the comfort felt good. "I don't know Mama. She's mad at me far as I can tell, but I have no idea why. She's completely shut me out. Hasn't said much more than 'hi' and 'bye' in a week. I think maybe she's upset about the house."

"You told her?"

"She's living in it. She was bound to notice, don't you think?"

"I'm sure that's not it, Edward. She's probably hurting."

"She seems to be talking to everybody else just fine." I pointed out, letting Mama go and nodding to where Iz was smiling as she hugged Dad and chattering away at him. I headed into the kitchen, first thing. I knew Daddy kept some 'shine around here, or if not, then definitely some whiskey and I was going to need it.

All day. All damned day I watched Isabella putter around the kitchen with Ma, laughing with her while she helped finish Thanksgiving dinner and not even sparing me a glance any time I went in to refill my whiskey glass. I watched her laugh with Rosalie and her friends, agreeing to help them with some project of theirs when she found out that they were music students. Worriedly, I moved to run intervention when the doorbell rang and my sister and her fiancée walked in… and I got to watch Izzy spare a polite 'Hello' for Alice. Jasper she ignored altogether.

Nice to know where I stood in the grand scheme of things… on the same level as low-life Jasper.

Fucking peachy.

I got up out of the chair I'd been parked in watching the football game and headed into the kitchen. If was still able to get upset, clearly I needed another drink.

"Don't you think you've had enough, Edward?" Daddy was at the counter prepping the second turkey that he was about to take out back and fry for those of us who didn't like the baked bird. I refilled my glass and drained half of it, before topping it off again. "Not nearly." I answered dryly.

Daddy stared at me for a minute, looking real stern despite his ice blonde hair and blue eyes giving him a naturally soft look about him, but he wasn't one to get in my business so he shrugged and hauled the turkey out back where he had a seat and pan ready by the fryer so he could stay out with the bird until it was done.

I took a seat at the island and dropped my head on the marble top with a groan. Fucking Izzy had me all tied up in knots. Was it really the house? Or maybe she had she finally realized that if I'd just gotten to her sooner, maybe Anthony might have lived? Maybe that was why she was mad at me. Fucking hell, I didn't need this shit right now. I wanted to be spending our first Thanksgiving back together, actually _together_ , not drunk in my Mama's kitchen by myself.

The more I sat there sulking and thinking about it, the angrier I got. I spent the better part of a year going plum out of my fool head trying to figure out how to get her back. I didn't sing, I didn't write, I cancelled appearances, I spent every waking hour thinking of nothing but how to get to her. Everyone else had written her off. Everyone else but me! I've done nothing but bend over backwards for that girl, and it was one thing that I couldn't spend Thanksgiving with my fiancée or wife, feeling our son kick in her belly, but now I didn't have Izzy at all. I'd gotten her back only to turn around and lose her, and me being none the wiser about what the fuck had even happened.

I heard the doorbell ring again, but one of the girls could get it. I was done dealing with people for the day. Fuck every last one of them. Fuck Izzy for leaving me in spirit because I'm sure her body would be following it out the door soon. Fuck every person she was in there smiling at and talking to while she treated me like a burr in her boot all week and fuck Jay Hunter for taking my girl and my son away from me.

Fuck all of this.

I'd leave Izzy to her precious Thanksgiving and go home.

I stood up, stumbling a bit before I drained my glass and headed back out into the living room. Izzy was sitting in a corner with Rosalie while Alice was talking to a red-headed woman on the couch.

Great, she'd invited Victoria.

She'd probably done it on purpose and all I needed now was for Iz to found out about that mistake. Then again, what the fuck did it matter if she was checked out anyways? I dug my keys out of my pocket and tossed 'em on the end table by Izzy and turned for the door. "Where are you going?" Rosalie asked me.

"Home." I grunted, almost to the door.

"Edward, wait!"

But it wasn't Isabella who called me. No, of course not.

It was Victoria.

I kept walking.

* * *

Me and my bright ideas. Walk home in the dark when it was 40-degree weather and deciding to take the back way through the property instead of the actual road: Mensa level thinking, I'm telling you. I should have had Rosie drop me off because I could have done without the slide into the creek before I'd even made it off my parents' property. I don't think I'd ever felt so damned cold and miserable. At least I could see the lights from the house finally.

Too bad seeing the house didn't mean I was _at_ the house. It was another 20 minutes before I made it to the front door, and by then I swear my clothes were frozen to me in some places. Apparently Izzy had beaten me here. I saw the truck in the drive way, but it didn't matter. I'd already made up my mind to pack my shit and call a car. Hell if I was gonna stay where I wasn't wanted.

My frozen fingers fumbled with the keypad and after 2 wrong tries, I was swearing up a blue streak when the door was wrenched open from the inside.

"Duke?" Izzy's face was puffy and her eyes were red and wet. "Where have you been? Are you okay? My god, you're all wet! What happened?"

She reached for me but I dodged past her, stumbling into the blessed heat. "I'm fine. Move, woman."

I started yanking off layers, tossing sopping clothes on the stairs as I headed up, intent on warming up in the shower and getting the fuck out of here.

"Wait a minute Duke! Edward!"

God damn it, all I want is some peace and now she wants to talk. "Too little, too late Darlin'." I mumbled, pushing open the bedroom door that I'd broken trying to get to her when my sister was trying to steal my son's things. Fuck her too. Fucking women.

I shoved my way into the bathroom, cussin' about my ruined sneakers and cell phone as I finished stripping and hauled ass to get in the shower, turning on the water luke warm, even though I was dying to turn it all the way to hot. Izzy at least stayed out and left me to my sour mood while I shivered and tried to shake off this chill. I swear to Christ, I was cold clear through to my bones and I didn't feel like I was ever going to warm up.

I stayed in the shower as long as possible, slowly working the temp up to hot and then lingering, hoping Izzy had gone to bed, or downstairs, or back to my parents' place because it fucking hurt to look at her.

Of course my luck wasn't worth a damn because she was sittin' on the bathroom counter, just watching me. I sighed because God forbid something be easy on me after all this horse shit. "If you'll call me a cab," I told her, wrapping a towel around my waist and using another one to towel my hair off. "You can go back to ignoring my existence right after."

Izzy gasped and struggled down from the counter as I headed past her and into the closet. I could feel her behind me as I flopped my suitcase flat open and started flinging whatever clothes I got my hands on into it.

"The cab, Iz." I reminded her tiredly. I just wanted to get to a bed and pretend the last 5 days hadn't fucking happened.

"Where…" She stopped. Then asked "Are you going to meet her?"

I whirled. What the fuck?

"Meet who? The hell are you talking about?"

"Victoria. She came back in the house after she followed you out and told Alice she was going to meet you later."

I hadn't clapped eyeballs on that woman after I left the house and I didn't have any intention of meeting anybody or anything but a pillow and blanket, but I didn't say a word. What did it matter?

"Edward, please!" She cried, laying a hand on my wrist before putting her body between me and my suitcase.

"Why would I stay?" I snarled, ignoring her flinch. "You already checked out. You won't look at me, won't speak to me, won't answer my questions with more than a 'yes' or 'no' if you bother to say anything at all. Am I supposed to stay and watch _you_ pack instead? Because that's what's coming next isn't it?"

"No!" She yelled, using her foot to push my suitcase away.

For Christ's sake, I didn't feel like this shit right now! I reached around her to get it, and she grasped both my hands in hers. "Just talk to me for a minute."

"I've been trying to get you to talk to me for more than a minute, Isabella!" I snapped. "I've been trying to get you to talk to me for a damn week and _you shut me out!_ "

"So that's it then?" She shoved at me. "You're just going to leave me and _go to her_?"

"God damn it, I've had enough of that shit." I threw her over my shoulder her marched her back into the bedroom.

"Edward, what-" Was all she could get out before I tossed her onto the mattress and my body came down over hers.

"Listen to me, you damn fool woman." I grabbed both of her legs, yanking her body closer to mine until we fit as closely as we could with clothing in the way. "I don't. Want. _Anybody else!_ " I reached into my nightstand and rooted blindly for the ring box I knew was in there, and held the gray leather box that had been haunting me for 6 months right over her face. "I bought this damned thing the day you disappeared. I was going to propose at dinner that night. It's been in LA in the closet ever since. I brought this here, to the house I built for you when we came together, Isabella, because I _still want to marry you damn it!"_

She stared, mouth open and eyes wide as I tossed the thing on the bed and used my hands to pin hers on either side of her head. She hadn't been underneath me in so long that I was as hard as granite. "It's you and you only." I told her. "From the day I met you, it's always been you! I don't want my sisters slutty friend or anybody else, Baby, and I've never slept with her. She tried a few months ago when I was here. I left a bar with her but I couldn't do it because all I wanted was you."

"You didn't talk to her after you left your parents house?" She asked, watching my face carefully.

"No, damn it!"

"You didn't promise to meet her at a hotel?"

"I told you, woman, no!"

"Then why are you trying to leave me?"

"Do I look like I'm going anywhere right now?"

The hell with that, she'd had her chance at freedom. She asked me to stay and she was damn well going to meet me halfway, or I'd drag her there kicking and screaming. I hunkered down even tighter between her legs, just to prove my point.

"You were packing." She mumbled, sounding hurt as she turned her face to the side.

"I thought I was giving you what you wanted." I said honestly, letting go of her left hand to grip her chin and turn her face back to me. "You wouldn't talk to me Darlin'. You completely locked me out."

"I feel guilty okay? I told you that." Her eyes turned wet and glassy and she tried to look away from me again, but I wouldn't let her, didn't give her any choice but to look at me as she fessed up. "Look at how much you've done for me after what I did."

"Isabella," I held her face gently in both hands, and hers came to rest on either side of mine. "I told you that I don't blame you. It's not your damned fau-"

"Then why won't you touch me?" She whispered.

I froze.

"Come again?"

"You don't want me anymore." She accused. I just stared at her.

"You've finally cracked and lost your damned mind!" I scoffed. "Your pants can't be that thick, you're wearing leggings! Surely you feel my erection begging at the door."

She rolled her eyes at me, but couldn't turn her head because I held her face still. "You'd get hard on top of any woman."

"Victoria would tell you diff- ow!" Demon woman and her sharp nails pinched my ass hard. "What the hell, Iz?"

"I don't want to hear about you being on top of her!"

I sighed and dropped my face into the crook of her neck. "I'm sorry, okay? Let's clear this up, right the fuck now. I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you. I don't blame you for what happened. I love you, and I want you. I just haven't touched you because I don't want to hurt you."

"The doctor gave us the go ahead." She countered.

"And?" I countered right back. "I bought condoms like the nurse suggested, but I was waiting to know that you were ready emotionally too. And I was waiting to know that you wanted me… I pretty much guessed you didn't when you clammed up on me."

I felt her flinch, and she tugged on my hair to get me to pull back so I could see her face.

"I'm sorry Duke." Her eyes fluttered, gaze roaming all over my face. "I felt guilty and I was scared. No, I was terrified that you'd realize how lopsided this relationship was. For fuck's sake you built me the house I've been dreaming of since I was 13! And while you were doing that, working on this for me, I was… I let that man… I…"

"Shhh, Baby, come here." I maneuvered us so I was sitting cross-legged on the bed with her in my lap. "You survived, Iz. You survived and you came back to me, that's all I care about. Now stop all this talk of it being your fault and me not wanting you. I keep telling you, you're it for me. I love you."

"I love you too, Duke."

I leaned in to kiss her, and she said against my lips. "Edward, I need you. Please. Please don't go."

"You have me, Iz." I hugged her close. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Touch me, please. I need you." She said again, and I could deny her nothing. I'd give her any and everything she ever asked of me. I wish she'd get that through that beautiful thick skull of hers.

I pulled her sweater over her head. "Anything you want, Sweetheart."

I stood up with her in my arms and flipped around, laying her down on the bed and running my hand down the length of her body. "So beautiful." I told her, following the path of my hand with my lips. "Let me know if I hurt you, Iz." I was still worried about her being sore, and I was definitely going to have to work to not squash her chest.

"Iz?" I prompted when she didn't answer me.

"Okay!" she squealed, gasping as my teeth grazed her mound when I used them to pull her leggings and underwear down. "Holy shit."

I got them down to her thighs and lowered them the rest of the way down to her feet one-handed while I dug back into my nightstand drawer for the pack of condoms and Iz squirmed around trying to get out of her pants.

In a perfect world I would have taken my time and romanced the hell out of her first, but I was on fire for her. I had to connect us, and reassure the both of us that we were still here together. I set the world record for putting on a rubber and knocked her hand out of the way, leaving her with her pants and underwear hanging off of one ankle as I slid inside of her.

"Ahhhh fuck." I groaned, loving the familiar way Izzy's breath hitched when my cock slid home. "Love that noise." I pulled out her tight heat and thrust back in to the hilt. "Hurts?" I asked, pausing and getting my back clawed for such insolence.

"No, don't stop, please!"

"Fuck. The best laid plans." I murmured, shaking my head and setting a quick pace that had her breath catching again as she asked me "Wha-at?"

"I wanted… -fuck, so wet, Jesus Izzy- I wanted to do this right… candles and flowers… go slow. Fuuuck, you feel fucking amazing."

"Candles next time." Iz panted. "Fuck me, Duke."

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I hiked her legs up higher, leaning my weight on the bed so I didn't put weight on her. "So good." I moaned. "God dammit." I reached past her head for that damned box and fiddled with it one handed until I had the ring free.

"You and only you, Iz. You hear me?"

"Y-yeeees." She moaned, flesh pulsing tight around my cock, and I could tell she was getting close.

"Let me –fuck- let me hear it, Iz. Only you." I commanded, reaching for her left hand.

"Only me. Only me!"

"Who loves you Baby? Hmm?"

"Oh, God!" Izzy gasped, already losing herself.

"Him too, but wrong answer." I put my thumb on her clit, hovering but not applying pressure. "Try again."

"You do! You, Duke!" She cried, mindless now. "Please, please."

With my other hand I slid the ring on her third finger, and she was so far gone, I don't even think she noticed. "That's right, Darlin'." I pounded into her, still not applying any pressure with my thumb. "Me. And you're going to look at your damned left hand every damned day and know that nobody loves you more than I do, and I'm not fucking going anywhere. Right?"

"Yes." She panted. "God, yes! I swear!"

"And if you ever shut me out again, I'll take you over my knee, do you hear me?"

"Yes! Oh! Yeeeeeees!" She squealed when I rolled her clit hard beneath my thumb. Her eyes rolled back and her back arched as her walls clamped around me in a vise grip, and my own mind numbing orgasm roared through me.

"Fuck!" I moaned, collapsing onto shaking arms. Izzy just laid there, eyes closed and thighs twitching. "Iz? Baby, you okay?" I poked her arm until she opened her big brown eyes to look at me.

"I'm wonderful." She grinned at me goofily. "Love you."

"Love you too, Gorgeous." I leaned down to peck her lips and then stood up, moaning as I slid out of her.

"Gonna get you a towel, stay there." I muttered, stumbling as I pivoted towards the bathroom. "Well fuck." Apparently all that whiskey hadn't worked off yet. I got rid of the condom and wet a hand towel then went back to my girl, feeling much better about the way the night turned out. Just as I eased onto the floor between her legs, her cell phone rang from underneath one of the pillows. "It's your Mom." She told me, as I set to work cleaning her up.

"Hello?" a pause and then. "Yes ma'am, he came home… I think he dropped his in the creek. Okay, be there in a bit."

"What is it?" I asked when she hung up the phone, but she was staring at her left hand. "Edward Anthony… did you seriously propose to me while we were fucking?"

I got to my feet, wary of the tone of her voice. "Um. Yes?" She flew up, smacking my arms and chest. "Why are you such an ass? You are never drinking whiskey again!"

"Do you want to give it back then?" I teased, ducking away as her hands flew faster.

"No! And it'll serve you right when you sober up and realized you proposed drunk off your ass while we were fucking! Idiot!" She smacked me a couple more times for good measure and stomped into the bathroom with her clothes. "Get dressed!" She snapped. "We're going back to your parents' house."

* * *

Izzy had told me in no uncertain terms that if I touched another glass of whiskey tonight she would borrow the necessary tools from my mother and geld me. Mama had told her to bring my sorry ass back to get some food in me and if we didn't have our act together, she was gonna tan the both of our hides.

We quickly got dressed and Iz drove us back over. Now we stood on the porch waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. I was freezing, shivering like a nervous whore in church after my accidental dunking in the creek. "Serves you right." Izzy mumbled, still angry at me. Another glance at her left hand earned me another round of slaps to my torso.

"Can't believe you!" She hissed. "While we were fucking!"

"Hey!" I grabbed her by the waist and hauled her up to my chest. "We weren't fucking, I was making love to you dammit, and I wanted to prove you don't have to worry about me going anywhere." I lifted her higher and pressed my forehead to hers. "Regardless of how it came to be on your finger, you're wearing my ring because you're mine and I'm yours. Mind, body and soul."

Her eyes softened and fluttered closed at my words, and her fingers came up to to my neck, tangling in the nape of my hair underneath my skull cap. "Love you, you ass." She whispered softly, and I knew I was forgiven.

"Love you too, Darlin'." I whispered back, just as the front door finally opened.

"Looks like you two made up!" Mama teased, backing inside the house to let us pass. I leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Sorry Mama."

"Yeah, yeah. Go and get some food in you, you drunkard."

I hung Izzy's and my coats up in the coat closet, grabbing her hand when she went to walk by so we could walk in together, like we should have the first time. She smiled at me and tugged me into the dining room where the food was all laid out. Iz went to make our plates but I waved her away and told her to go find us some spots to sit in the living room and I'd bring her something to eat. Best to start my groveling now.

I fixed our plates and went to heat them up before adding the cranberry sauce, taking Izzy hers while mine nuked next.

"Thanks Duke." She grinned at me, accepting her dinner and silverware. I winked at her and went to retrieve my plate and two mugs of apple cider out of the kitchen before joining her on the loveseat, ignoring the dirty looks my sister and her whore friend were giving us.

"Duke?" Victoria sneered. "Isn't that a bit derogatory?"

"Derogatory how?" one of Rose's school friends asked.

"She's making fun of you right to your face."

"Bella wouldn't do that." Rose snapped. "And it's not because he's country, it's because he has the same car from Dukes, you trollop. Mind your business."

"Rose!" Ma admonished, while I covered my mouth to hide my laugh and the rest of the teenagers giggled.

"You be polite to company young lady!"

"She's not allowed to sit in my house and be rude to my family." Rose shot back possessively.

"I wasn't rude to Eddie." Victoria snapped, giving my kid sister a look I really didn't appreciate.

"No," Rose said. "You were rude to Bella."

Alice looked furious and she shot Rose a nasty look of her own as she said "Come on Vicky." and pulled her into the kitchen. I shot Iz another wink and didn't give the "trollop" another thought.

Looking around the room it looked like Jasper was gone, but everyone else was still here. Mama, Dad, Rose and her 3 friends all lounged around the informal family room, comfortable in their varying spots on couches or the floor. Without Alice and Victoria's shit, this was the comfortable Thanksgiving I had wanted to give my girl. And thankfully, once they saw we weren't going to give them any attention, the two of them stayed in the kitchen, perhaps waiting on Jasper who probably had Alice's car again.

"God that was good," Iz patted her small belly and leaned back into the couch cushions. She'd cleaned her plate. "There's plenty more if you want Sweetheart." Mama told her, grinning. "And there's pumpkin and sweet potato pie in the fridge."

"I think I will." Izzy smiled. "Pie sounds fabulous right now."

"Well come on." Ma stood up, holding out a hand for Iz. "And I'll show you where I hide the wine."

"Oh man, I knew I loved you." Iz stacked my empty plate with hers and walked arm in arm into the kitchen with my mother. "Edward," Mama called over her shoulder. "You come too and get you some water young man."

"Yes ma'am." I hauled myself up and obeyed, sticking my tongue out at the giggling teenagers as I passed. Bunch of stinkers.

I moseyed into the kitchen just in time to catch my mothers loud yell of "Holy Hell!" and the crash of a ceramic plate breaking all over the kitchen travertine. Dad came running into the kitchen, as did Rose and the other kids. I was the only one not frazzled because I was pretty sure I knew what had happened.

"Christ almighty, Edward this thing's as big as her head." Ma had Iz by the hand, palm up, looking at the brilliant cushion cut diamond, haloed by two rings of smaller diamonds that was nestled against her fingers. I shoved by all the people crowded around my woman and gently took her hand from my mama. "Is it too big, Darlin'?" I asked, twisting her ring around her finger so it faced the right direction.

"Only a little." She murmured, face flushed from all the attention. "It flips every time I turn my hand."

"Oooh," Ma was excited, bouncing between the two of us. "I have spacers, hold on just a minute."

"We'll get it sized soon." I told Izzy, kissing her knuckles as Mama ran up to her room, faster than I'd ever seen her move.

"Holy shit, how much did you pay for that thing?" One of the teenagers asked, a freckled faced kid with orange hair and huge shoulders. Rose smacked him upside the head. "None of your business!" She hissed.

I shook my head at them, and Ma returned as quickly as she disappeared and deposited a fistful of plastic things on the counter. She picked up one and reached for Izzy's hand, flipping it over and both she and Izzy gasped.

"Oh, Edward." Iz moaned lowly, not having noticed the two initials spelled out with diamonds set in platinum in the middle of the band of her ring before now. She traced over the 'E', the heart, and the 'I' before looking up at me with watery eyes.

"Still mad at me Babe?" I teased, wiping away the one tear that spilled over onto her cheek. She put her wine glass down and threw herself at me, arms around my neck. "I guess not." She sobbed. "I love it."

"Who doesn't look at the ring?" Alice muttered under her breath. My mother shot her a look. "When it's a man worth his salt, he matters more than the jewelry." She said.

Alice huffed and flounced off, taking her friend with her. Good riddance.

They didn't put a damper on Ma's excitement even a little bit. She squealed again and hugged the both of us, even as I still held Izzy in my arms. "Oh, I'm so happy for the both of you! My baby is getting married!" She squealed again and kissed us both on the cheek, taking away Izzy's wine glass. "No, no. This calls for champagne!" She said, ducking down to the wine cooler built into the the side of the island.

"Except you, Drunkard." Ma handed me a Dasani. "You drink water."


	6. Chapter 6

**NSFW** chapter. It's also short BUT there are **LEMONS AHEAD!**

I had to give Izzy and Duke a well deserved break.

 **Chapter 6**

I eyed Izzy's sleeping from with a grin the size of Texas on my face, despite the fact that I felt like I'd been dragged around a bramble field by pissed off wild horses. We'd forgotten to close the blinds last night and she had her left hand thrown over her face to block the sun. The giant sparkler on her hand caught the light in a way I wouldn't have believed if I wasn't staring right at it. But with a 10 carat stone with another 2 carats in smaller diamonds in the halo and band-work, the damn thing had better blind every man, woman, and dog from here to Kentucky.

It looked incredible on her… especially since she hadn't worn anything else to bed but one of my t-shirts. I know Iz thought I'd been too drunk to know what I was doing, but I couldn't regret anything that ended with my ring on her finger. Do I wish it had been more romantic? Of course. I was capable of way better, but it was the best way at the time to assure her that I meant to keep her, no matter what else was going on in that head of hers.

"You trying to figure out how this huge rock got there?" Iz asked without opening her eyes.

I ran a hand over her ribs under the blanket. "Not a chance woman. I remember every bit of last night. Just admiring my handiwork."

"Handiwork huh?" She cracked open her eyes to squint at me in the morning light. "You sure look smug."

"I've got you for forever and life. Of course I'm smug." I trailed my hand under her t-shirt and pulled her panties down her legs. "I'm about to be even more smug."

Plus I still had some groveling to do.

"Is that so?" She asked lightly, eyeing me down the length of her body as I shouldered her legs apart, ducking under the duvet.

"Very much so." I agreed, and buried my tongue in her slick heat.

"Ah, shit!" Izzy hissed, and I was feeling very smug indeed as her fingers dug into my hair. I sunk two fingers inside of her hot flesh, pumping them slowly while my tongue spelled out letters on her clit in long, smooth strokes that allowed me to hit every part of her. It drove her insane every time, and she never was able to tell what I was doing.

E-D-W-A-R-D-S

Then A-B-C-D-E-F… by the time I got to Q, Iz's legs were shaking like crazy and her back was arching up off the mattress.

"God, so close." She moaned, arching and bucking. "So close!"

T-U-V…

I curled my fingers inside, pressing on her g-spot and she came with a harsh wail. I finished out my alphabet while she rode out her orgasm, starting on numbers and making it 6 before a second wave came right on top of the first and she screamed.

I pulled her clit into my mouth and sucked hard, gripping her legs tight when her thighs would have clapped down over my ears. Her orgasm stretched on until I stroked her spot again, giving one more suck to her sensitive clit and she flailed, ejaculating down my chin in a hot gush.

Hot damn, still had it.

I released her and laved at her flesh gently with my tongue until her quivering eased. "Fucking shit." She moaned, panting. Her shirt had ridden all the way up to expose the ace bandages she had wrapped over her heaving chest, and her entire body glistened with sweat. She looked sexy as hell, wrecked from my loving and I wanted nothing more than to slide my cock in that beautiful pussy, but I'm sure said pussy needed a break before I teased it again.

I wiped my chin and neck, sucking her juices off my fingers because I was perv who thoroughly enjoyed the taste of my girl, and she was a perv who thoroughly enjoyed to see me do it. She moaned, eyes fluttering closed, and I ran a hand up her sweaty body. "Okay, Baby Girl?"

"I think you killed me, but other than that, I'm fabulous."

I laughed, sidling back up in the bed and pulling her back to my front. "Go back to sleep Darlin'. It's early yet."

With my arms full of my soft, sweet smelling woman and the taste of her on my lips and tongue, I happily let sleep claim me again.

The next time I woke, I felt Iz's stare on me this time. I peeked one eye open and grinned, she was sitting up beside me, fiddling with her engagement ring as she watched me sleep.

I knew that look. At least I hoped I did.

"What's up Darlin'?" I asked, leaning up on my elbow.

She grinned at me slowly.

Pretty thing. She made me so hard so fast that it hurt.

"Can we go to the grocery store? I'm craving lobster tails."

I bust out laughing, dropping back flat on the bed.

"What?" She asked. "What's funny?"

"I was getting all excited. Thought you wanted sex."

"Oh, I do." She grinned wider and flashed me her hands, showing me the condom she held between her first two fingers. "I was just letting you know I was craving lobster too."

I grabbed her silly ass around the waist and dragged her on top of me. Then I took the condom from her fingers and ripped it open with my teeth, holding her steady with one hand while I rolled the condom down my length with the other.

Izzy stared down at my cock and licked those full lips of hers.

"Sweetheart," I groaned, lifting her up. "If you let me inside you in the next 4 seconds, I swear to Christ, I'll buy you every dang lobster tail in the grocery store."

She raised an eyebrow at me, even as she lowered herself down, slowly parting her folds over me. "Are you soliciting pussy in exchange for seafood?" She asked, incredulously.

"Depends." I gripped her waist and brought her down the rest of the way, slamming my cock home. "Is it working?"

Izzy panted. Her hands clawed at my shoulders and arms, trying to find a hold. "Heck yeah, it is." She breathed. "Duke's huge dick and lobster. There's really no way I'm losing in this scenario."

"You're a damned nut." I chuckled _._

 _That's my girl._

My hands slid down her back to grab two huge handfuls of her luscious behind.

"Such an ass man." She teased.

"It can't be helped." My breathing hitched a little when I used my handle on her ass to grind her against me as she came down on my dick again. _Damn that feels good._ "We gotta feed you up," I let go with one hand to smack her right cheek lightly, wishing I could see the ripple of flesh when her ass jiggled. "-get this thing back up to fighting weight."

She froze, but I was enjoying our slow rhythm too much, and thrust up into her to keep pace.

"You want me to gain the weight back?" She asked, the shock real and not feigned this time.

I thrust up into her again. "Baby, please move." I whined. Yes, _whined._

Rolling her eyes at me, Izzy braced both hands on my chest and swiveled her hips. "You always did like to talk and fuck."

 _My_ eyes rolled back. "Nothing wrong with being efficient." Really, I just liked to watch her lose track of the conversation when she got really into what I was doing to her. "Holy hell, Iz do that again."

"The weight?" She prompted, swiveling her hips again.

"Fuck yes, I want it back." I told her. "Sexiest body I've ever fucking seen. All tits and ass. Could be a model, but I don't want anybody seeing that body but me. Hold on, girl."

I'd had enough slow and easy. Gripping her hips, I started slamming down onto me, picking up the pace and snapping my hips up meet hers.

She cried out, nails digging into my chest, and the sting spurred me on, making me pump faster.

"My favorite sights on God's Green Earth:" I panted over the sound of our skin slapping together. "Your smile, my ring on your finger, your hand in mine," Groaning, I pumped even harder. "Your face when you cum, and your ass in a thong."

"Christ." Izzy moaned, and took over. Bracing her weight on my chest again, she slammed down onto my cock, over and over.

"Hell yes, Isabella, ride me Baby."

God damn, her pussy quivered, and she dripped, hot and wet all over me. Her rhythm started to stutter and I could tell she was getting close. I sat up, readying, and when she stilled above me, I flipped us over and hitched her leg up over my waist.

"Duke!" She sobbed out her orgasm. "Don't stop!"

"I've got you, Sweetheart. Fuck, you're squeezing me so tight!" I fell over her, one fist shoved into the bed as I fucked her wildly and with abandon. Her nails scratched my back and I moaned. That shit was going to make me nut hard.

"That's it. Come for me Izzy." I growled in her ear as she wailed. "Let me hear you."

I slipped my hand between us and rubbed her clit furiously.

"Ah! Duke!"

Iz broke apart in my arms. Her thighs quaked, and her pussy clenched tight around me. Her hand snuck into my hair at the same time her nails scored my back again and I had just enough presence of mind to turn my head so I didn't roar in her ear as I came in heavy, hot spurts.

I came harder than I had, even last night, until I lay breathless on top of her, my face pressed into her neck.

"Damn woman, I think your pussy finally killed me." I gasped.

She snorted out a laugh, and I looked up to see she had tears on her face too.

The panic was instant and white hot.

"Shit, Iz did I hurt you?"

I pulled back, but her legs wrapped around my waist, keeping me locked in.

"No." She insisted. "Now shut up and kiss me."

"You sure I didn't-"

"Edward!"

"Yes ma'am."

Never let it be said that my woman doesn't get what she wants. She drove my face down to hers with the hand she had buried in my hair. "Careful with that shit." I told her as my cock pulsed. "Making me wanna fuck you again."

She didn't say anything, just yanked my face the rest of the way to hers and kissed me roughly, her full, pillowy soft lips dominating mine. Her teeth tugged on my bottom lip before she gave me her tongue and I moaned. That was all it took to get my cock at full stand again.

I thrust softly into her, testing the waters and she mewled softly.

So fucking sexy.

Our tongues battled, in direct contrast to my shallow, gentle thrusts into her soaking wet heat.

I was ready to jump up and switch condoms when her stomach growled loudly and she giggled into my mouth.

"Feed me Seymour!" I teased, grinning, even though my dick wanted to weep.

Still not ready to pull apart, we laid there until her stomach growled again and guilt forced me to pull out of her. We both moaned at the wet sound of my body sliding free of hers.

"More sex later," I said, reaching to take the condom off. "Let's go get your…"

I trailed off, staring down, frozen.

Oh shit.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

"What?" Izzy asked, looking down between her own legs. "Am I bleeding again?"

Still, I stared.

She was going to fucking kill me.

"Baby, I'm so sorry."

"What?" Izzy looked at me again. "Duke, snap out of it. What's wrong?"

I stared into her eyes.

"The condom broke."

 **AN:**

 _Oy... Put down the pitchforks! Izzy and Duke just need to have some conversations, that's all. They've both been keeping some things bottled up still, and to get better, they have to get all that negativity and hurt out. They've got to be a force to be reckoned with, because they've got some pretty big fish to fry here soon._

 _Please leave me a review and let me know what you think! Reviews are better than dirty talking Duke and his alphabets! Okay, maybe not better than, but close!_


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I stared down at the broken pieces of latex in my hands and felt dread heavy in my gut. How could I have done this to her?

Son of a bitch, she was laying there, breasts still wrapped because the loss of our first child, and I could have gotten her pregnant again.

"Hey." Izzy's hand came over mine, breaking my line of sight. "Duke. It's been over a week." She said softly. "The birth control should be kicked in by now."

"'Should be' don't mean it is." I groaned, and chucked the mess into the trash can by my night stand. When I was sure my damned hands weren't shaking like a virgin's on prom night, I reached for my fiancée. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry."

She very carefully kept her face turned from me as she asked. "Do you… not want another…" Her voice cracked a little on her and she tried again. "Do you not want a baby with me?"

I tucked my finger beneath her chin and guided her face back towards me, locking our gazes. Her face was shuttered and her eyes were wet with unshed tears, further proving that now wasn't the right time. "Isabella, I want a whole passel of kids with you." I declared. "But I want you to heal first, Darlin'."

"But,"

"No 'but's, Iz. I want us to have a baby because we're ready and we want one, not because we're hurting about Anthony. It won't make it right, and I won't let us just fill the hole that he left. Plus I don't want you hurt."

Tears were sliding down her face now, and I gently brushed them away. "Let's shower, and get your seafood… get you all filled out again." I trailed my hands down her body, wanting our easy teasing manner from just a few minutes ago back. "And when we're ready, I promise to rock that ass and put as many babies in you as you want."

"Duke!" She gasped, looking scandalized, but I saw the gleam in her eye. She was anything but. Then she grinned wickedly. "You promise?"

"On everything."

The sad look had gone from her face, but still, I took a minute just to hold her close, my Izzy. "You're going to make a beautiful bride." I whispered into her hair. "And an even more beautiful Mama."

Tight as her grip was around my waist, I felt her arms tremble.

I squeezed her tighter. "I promise you, Isabella. Whatever we have to do, I'll make it happen."

And then I'd probably make her ass sit in bed the whole nine months, but we didn't need to go over that little detail just yet.

When her stomach growled again, we hauled ourselves in the shower and got cleaned up, then dressed and headed to Kroger. It was a quick trip, and thankfully the store was fairly empty. The kid at the seafood counter stared at us, uninterested in us or unknowing of who we were, only batting an eye when I asked for every lobster tail he had, plus all the shrimp. When I noticed Iz eyeing the crab legs like she might want those too, we added them as well.

"Can we have your parents over?" Izzy asked me, tucked between me and the cart as we headed to the produce section.

"It's your house too, Sweetheart." I told her, casually tossing some corn cobs in the cart, but pleased all get out that she wanted to invite them. "You want to have company, invite them over."

She gave me that soft look of hers that she had when I said something that pleased her. She stood up on her toes and kissed my neck, the pulled my old backup phone from my hoodie pocket, unlocking it with the code and dialing Mama quickly.

"Hi Ms. Esme!" She sounded genuinely happy when my mom picked up, and I grinned as she tucked the phone between her cheek and shoulder and flitted around, grabbing lemons and chives and chucking them in the cart, and then heading deeper into the store.

I was content to follow her with the cart, listening to her talk to my mother as she grabbed eggs and buttermilk, and then turned once again.

"Have you all eaten yet? Wanna come over? I woke up craving seafood pretty badly and suckered Duke into taking me to the grocery store. We have enough to feed everybody… No ma'am, no trouble!"

We headed for the spice aisle next, and Izzy absently ran her finger over the shelves, tossing this and that in when she found what she wanted.

"Yes, tell Rose they can come too."

She headed to the outdoor aisle next, and pointed to a large cooler that was on the top shelf, presumably so it'd be out of the way until the summer months when more people would want them. Instead of walking around her, I squeezed between her and the shelving, caressing her waist and rubbin' myself against her ass before I reached for her cooler.

Her own fault.

She knows what her bubble butt in leggings does to me.

Iz raised an eyebrow at me, but kept on talking to Mama on the phone while I shoved the cooler underneath the body of the cart.

"No ma'am, I'm okay. Some days are harder than others, but today's not so bad. Hey, Duke, do we have these at home?" She pointed to a huge silver pot, and I shrugged, grinning stupidly. She'd shorted my circuits casually referring to the house as our home instead of my house. Uncaring that she was on the phone, I bent and kissed her hard, sweeping my tongue into her mouth when she gasped.

I could hear Mama carrying on in her ear, but oh well.

Looking completely poleaxed when I let her go, she breathed "What on Earth was that for?"

"Because you're the most perfect thing I've ever seen."

Esme Cullen's "Awwww," was loud and clear through the speakers.

* * *

We grabbed two of the silver stew pots and two deep cast iron skillets, just to be on the safe side, and then we loaded up the truck. The cooler, I discovered, was so we could put all the seafood in it so it wouldn't roll around in the bed and leave my entire truck smelling like fish.

I definitely appreciated that.

I made Iz go inside while I carried all the groceries in from the garage, and she took the time to tie her hair up on top of her head, and pull on a thick pair of socks, and one of my old t-shirts to cook in. By the time she finished, I had everything piled on the counters.

"Okay, Darlin'. What do you need me to do?"

She was already whirling around the kitchen, placing things here and there, turning on the stove and taking things out of grocery bags.

"Can you turn on some music and wash the new pots and skillets for me?"

"Sure thing."

One of my favorite things to do was watch Izzy in the kitchen. Everybody looked at us crazy sometimes, wondering what she was doing with my country ass, but despite what kind of music she sang and how she dressed, Izzy was just as country as me and mine. Her Mama had been from Durant, Mississippi and she and Iz had lived there until Izzy was 15, so Izzy had that Southern love of cooking for everybody, and eating good food with family. It had been just Izzy and her mother until cancer had taken her away a couple years ago, so I had a feeling Izzy was going to surround herself with my family, and I loved every second of it.

My only other girlfriend I'd had since making it big had been a caricature of The Big City Girl, through and through. She didn't cook (which I didn't mind so much, because I could cook and didn't mind doing so), and she hated being outside. She hadn't wanted to come home and meet my family, and when we had a disagreement, occasionally, she'd talk to me like I was some dumb country bumpkin who couldn't help his self because he didn't know any better. Three of those arguments was all I could take before she was out of there as fast as I could get her moving.

My Izzy, though. That woman was perfect. When she made me fried chicken and okra on our first Valentine's day together, and didn't bat an eye at staying in because I'd been late, I knew I was gonna marry her. Speaking of which, I'd definitely have to make up for that cancelled dinner and take her someplace amazing this go round. Maybe we could fly out to the Bahamas for a week. Izzy's bubble butt in a bikini? All that caramel brown skin on display?

Yes, please.

I put a 90s playlist on, because this woman loved her blast from the past music, and was elbow deep in dishwater when the doorbell rang. Izzy abandoned her prep work to go let our family in.

"Boots off." I heard Izzy request.

"Dude, she has you doing dishes!" One of Rose's loud mouth friends was the first to jog into the kitchen. The same big mouthed red haired kid who'd asked how much her ring cost last night.

"That's how you get pussy, idiot." The taller blonde one replied. He had a soft look to his face that teenaged girls probably loved because he was 'pretty'. God, I hope my sister was smarter than that. Everything about him screamed arrogant prick.

"Language!" I barked. "There are ladies present. In my house, you will watch your mouth in front of my sister, my Mama, and my woman. Got it?"

Pretty boy pulled a sour face, but nodded.

Christ. When I was a kid, I never spoke like that in front of adults. Disrespectful little shit.

The next wave of people came through, Iz walking arm in arm with Ma and Rosie, with Rose's female friend in front of them and Dad behind them.

"Hung over today?" Rosalie teased, letting go of Izzy's waist to hug me. I kissed her on her forehead and picked her up off the floor in a bear hug, wet hands and all. "No, smarty pants, I feel fine, thank you. Hey Mama, Daddy." I hugged my parents next, and then, oddly, Rosie's little friend moved in for a hug as soon as I let go of my dad.

Lord almighty, this group of kids was just weird. I really hoped Rosalie would make friends at school, but these ones… were odd to say the least, and definitely not the kind of people my sister usually liked. I had my suspicions about that, but I'd wait and see what happened.

Rosie glared, red faced at the back of her friend's head, but refrained from commenting. All the kids started speaking at once. One wanted to play video games, and had his Xbox in a bag slung over one shoulder, one wanted to know if the food was ready and Rosalie wanted to help Iz in the kitchen.

"I already told you, you weren't hooking that janky thing up to my brother's entertainment system." Rose glared at the red haired kid. He looked offended. "Why not?"

"Because, that thing gave Riley's cheap Walmart TV a virus, no way in Hell are you hooking that crap up to my brother's set up."

"You're a girl," the kid snarled. "What do you know?"

Rosalie went to give him what for, and my peaceful afternoon was quickly deteriorating into loud and teenaged level chaos.

"Hey, hey, HEY!" I shouted over the bickering. "Rosalie knows more about computers than all of us combined-"

"That shouldn't be hard." The blonde boy snarked.

"Thin ice, kid." I warned him standing up to full height and glaring at him. He gulped, duly intimidated, so I continued.

"If Rosie says it's jerry-rigged, you're not connecting it to any of my electronics. I have a brand new Xbox One already connected. You can play online, download a game if you want from the _Microsoft store only_. No lip, got it?"

"Got it, sir."

Jesus, where did Rosalie find these kids?

"Duke," Izzy cut in, "Why don't you go help set up the TV in the basement, and Rose can help me up here?"

Rosalie looked so relieved that I just went with it, leading the chuckleheads down into the theater room. I quickly set up the Xbox, allowing them to use their own Log-In IDs and warning them not to touch anything they shouldn't. After Rose's comment though, I didn't trust the dorky kid, and Dad and I sat down there with them, occasionally taking turns on Mortal Kombat.

After a while, the smell of cooking seafood started wafting down from the kitchen, and I abandoned Dad to watch the heathens alone. I found Izzy standing on her tiptoes, awkwardly trying to stir the two large stew pots that were on the back half of the stove over the two skillets that had grease popping all over the place.

Boyz II Men was playing over the speakers, and Izzy was singing softly under her breath while Rosalie deveined shrimp in the sink, and Ma sat at the Island, watching with a smile on her face.

I pulled the step stool out from it's hiding place next to the fridge and popped it open, lifting Izzy by the waist and sliding it under her feet.

"Thanks, Baby." She kissed me on the cheek quickly.

"Of course."

"So, corn first." Rosalie asked, peering over into the pots before she handed Ma a bowl of newly cleaned shrimp. Ma dumped half into a bag of seasoning and handed the rest to Izzy, who dumped them into one of the boiling pots.

"Corn first." She answered. "It takes 10 or 15 minutes or so. I like to put it in a separate pot from the seafood, or everything will sort of taste the same, and I like my corn to stay sweet. When I'm cooking for a bunch of people though, I'll put corn in both pots, so people can pick which they like. Whatever seafood you want to fry, start at the same time as the corn. 5 minutes after that, you can throw the shrimp in to boil, since it's quickest."

Rose, bless her heart, was paying close attention. I could tell it tickled Mama pink, because her smile was huge, bright and happy. Rosalie was the baby and the light of our family, but she didn't get along well with many females and most of that was my fault. Everybody knew who she was here, and people tended to try and set themselves up to get close to her because she was a doctor and lawyer's youngest child, and her big brother was famous… They used her to try and get an in with a rich family, and that, hand in hand with the fact that she was gorgeous, along with her affinity for all things mechanical and electronic, females tended to either be spiteful or treat her like a meal ticket.

Since I'd gotten my record deal, I was her best friend. Which was nice, but she needed girls to talk to, I'm sure.

"Sometimes," Izzy went on. "If I'm trying something new, like frying lobster, I'll check the recipe first, like we just did, with a test run before I serve it to people."

"Wait a minute." I broke in, because- "You _fried_ lobster? Where is it?"

The girls laughed at me. "Told you he'd be up when he smelled it." Izzy teased, hip checking me lightly. "We put you one in the microwave. Rosalie fried it."

"Look at you!" I kissed my sister on the cheek loudly, and she giggled. "Cooking lobster, you fancy thing you."

"Ma and Bella tried it, but I haven't yet." She admitted. "I was scared, I'd ruin it."

"It's just food, Baby Girl." I said over my shoulder, heading for my treat in the microwave. "If you messed it up, just try something different. That's how you get better."

"That's what Izzy said." She admitted. I pulled the saucer out of the microwave, and my mouth watered. "Jeez, Rosalie, this thing is gorgeous, I almost don't want to eat it."

Fuck that, though. I was gonna. It smelled amazing. The tail sat neatly on a bed of paper towels, half out of it's bright red shell, the flesh battered a crispy bright golden brown, with flecks of green chives in the crust.

Because I wanted to encourage her, and not many people did, I whipped my phone out and took a picture of it first, and then propped it up on the counter and turned my Instagram on and set the camera to face us. "My baby sis, fried me lobster tail today." I told the camera, live streaming and throwing my arm over Rosie before she could get away. "Look at this!" I picked the bright red shell with it's golden fried meat sitting prettily on top of it and held it up in front of me. "It's so pretty I almost don't want to demolish it, but the hell with that. We'll try it together." I insisted. "Damn, but it smells good."

I snatched the meat out of it's shell and broke it in half, shoving half in Rose's mouth before she could protest, and quickly shoving the other half in mine. "Holy fuck." I groaned. "Oh! Sorry Mama. God, this is good, Rosie." Then I grabbed her and dug my knuckles into her scalp, giving her a huge big brother noogie. "Make me another one?" I asked. "Please, Little Sis?"

"Ow!" She shrieked, laughing. "No, you big brute. Let me go!"

"Rosie, pleeeeease?"

"No! Ask your woman! Leggo!"

Laughing, I kissed her on her cheek and turned the camera off. "No seriously?" I said. "Can I have another one?"

Lunch, between my sister and fiancée, ended up being perfection. Everyone's plate was piled artfully with corn on the cob, crab legs, fried lobster, boiled shrimp and fried shrimp. We ate in the basement, because the house was full of teenagers with greasy food, and the basement housed the cheapest carpeting. We all sat on the floor with our plates in our laps, watching a movie on the big screen. We steadily shoveled food into our mouths, and other than a movie, it was silent and even the loud mouthed boys were quiet. I quickly took a video of my family all enjoying our meal and uploaded it with the caption 'The best people, and the best food!'

"Can we make this a post holiday tradition?" Dad groaned, happily patting his belly after he'd cleaned his plate.

"Please." I seconded that notion, ready to fall into a food coma.

"Hmm," Izzy said, conspiratorially leaning into my sister who was pressed closely to her side. "What do you think Rose?"

"You'd… you'd want to do that?" Rose asked, eyes wide.

Iz grinned. "What, you plan on moving to the moon or something? I'll be here, what about you?"

"Awesome!" Rosalie smiled happily, and Dad's grin matched Mama's and mine. It was nice to see Rosalie bonding with another female.

"You helped cook?" Bree, the scrawny girl who had hugged me earlier, wrinkled her nose distastefully. What did she think Rosalie had meant when she asked Izzy to help? "You're going to get huge if you keep eating like this." Then she slid Izzy a look that I didn't appreciate, quick but loaded with derisive judgment and winked at me. This girl was seriously reminding me of Irina, my ex, and I wanted her fast ass out of my house before I caught her digging through my underwear drawer or some weird shit.

I refrained from saying anything, since they were technically, still kids… but I would talk to Rosie about her friends later. I'm glad Iz told me Ma said those brats were leaving tonight.

After that, we played another movie and half of us dozed through it. I napped peacefully with one hand behind my head and Izzy curled into me on one side, Rosie laying perpendicular with her legs across both of our laps. Good food, good people was right. I slept until somebody's alarm went off, and Ma told us it was time for them to get back so they could take Rose's friends to the airport.

I knew something was up when Izzy quickly volunteered "Duke and I can take them!"

Dad was blatantly ready to be free of the little shits and agreed before Iz had closed her mouth. So we borrowed his Tahoe and piled into it with 4 teenagers, and a bunch of luggage. The drive to the airport wasn't bad, and we made quick work of depositing the three stooges at their designated drop-off zone. We weren't even 100 yards from Delta Passenger Drop Off when Izzy whipped her seatbelt off and climbed over the console and into the back seat.

"Isabella, God dammit!" I cussed. I hated when she did that shit. What if somebody hit us?

She shushed me and buckled herself in next to my sister, and began questioning her about her friends. "How long have you known Collin, Riley and Bree?" she asked.

Shit, I hadn't even bothered to learn all their names.

"A couple months." Rose admitted, shrugging and looking out of the window. "I know they aren't the best, but… everybody else hates me. They think I only got in because Edward paid my way."

"Then they aren't work being friends with." Izzy said firmly. Rosie nodded. "Some people don't speak to me at all, a few because they don't really care, but everybody else is so…"

"Jealous." Izzy cut in. "Tell me about Bree, Riley and Collin?"

"I don't know." Rosalie shrugged again. "They approached me at lunch one day, and they've been sticking close ever since, but…"

"But they aren't very nice to you." Izzy guessed. Rosalie nodded and my hands clenched on the steering wheel.

"Well," she amended. "Riley is some times."

Iz's voice became immediately disgruntled. "Stay away from that one. I don't like him."

"Heard his 'pussy' comment did you?" I asked.

"Very much not appreciated." Izzy agreed. "You know," she said, to Rose, this time. "When you were getting ready to graduate, your brother felt terrible."

"What? Why?" Rose sounded confused.

"Because he worried that people would try and use you, and it'd be his fault."

Rose sighed, and I glance up in the rearview mirror to look at her face.

"Not all the way his fault." She admitted. "Sometimes I see it coming, but I let it happen anyway."

I almost swerved, staring at the two women in the back of the truck through the mirror. Izzy put a hand to Rose's face and asked "Sweetheart, why?"

Rosalie sniffled, the sound knocking me in the gut with all the force of a bucking bronco kick. "Because I don't have any friends."

I watched, eyes flying between the mirror and the road as Izzy wiped a tear away from my sister's face.

"Hey," she said gently. "I don't either. Your brother's my only friend… and now you. The goal here is quality over quantity. It doesn't do you any good to have friends if you can't trust them. Never let people use you, Sweetheart, you're too good for that."

"Then who do I talk to?" Rosalie cried. "I… I…"

"Hey," Iz interjected again. "I know I'm… older than you." She said the word 'older' distastefully. "But I'll gladly hang out with you. And you're at school to learn, anyway. Fuck them." Then she winced at her wording in a way that had me snickering under my breath. "Bad choice of words. Not _literally_. Seriously, stay away from Riley. I'd hate to punch him in the nuts, but he's bigger than me, so that negates the fact that he's a kid, right?"

Rose sniggered and tentatively lay her head on Iz's shoulder, as if she was scared of being rejected. Izzy turned, and hugged her tightly. "You never answered me," she teased. "Don't you want to be my friend?"

"Seriously?" Rose asked. "You'd do that?"

"You make it sound like I'm taking your place in the dentist chair for a root canal. Of course we can be friends. And you can talk to your brother too, you know. He worries about you."

"Aw, he's got real stuff to worry about. I don't wanna bother him with my stupid girly problems."

"It's not stupid." I cut in, eying the side view mirror so I could change lanes. "You're my sister, and I love you, Dummy. Whatever you want to talk to me about, I'll listen and help you if I can. I know what it's like to not be able to really trust anybody too. Even other famous people will use each other sometimes to make themselves look better. I always have to watch out for that, so I don't have many really good friends either."

"It sucks." Rose griped.

"Yeah Sweetheart, it does." I agreed. "But then, you don't want friends who would use you anyway, so it's their loss, not yours."

She was quiet, and when I glanced up in the mirror again, she looked like she was thinking about what we said, which was good. I didn't want my baby sister allowing people to use her just because she was lonely.

When Iz and I got home after dropping Rosie off at home, I was exhausted. It was only 8pm, but I wanted my woman and my bed. "Izzy, do you wanna… Hey, what's wrong?" She was holding her stomach.

"The pain was gone for a couple days now so I didn't take any medicine this morning." She frowned. "I'd almost forgotten…"

"I think maybe no more climbing over center consoles for you." I suggested lightly, reaching into the kitchen junk drawer for the bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. I pulled out two and handed them to her, laying my chin on her shoulder as she swallowed them dry.

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart."

She sighed, and moved out of my arms to grab a Cherry Coke out of the fridge. "It's my fault." She grumbled. "It was kinda nice to feel normal for a couple hours. Should have known I wasn't going to be able to _not_ think about it for long."

"Hey," I followed her, boxing her into the wood and glass door of the huge Sub-Zero refrigerator. "How about…" I laced my fingers with hers and leaned down to kiss the soft skin of her neck. My other hand trailed down her back to her ass. "you go put some sweatpants on over these sexy ass leggings, Darlin', and grab a hat and some gloves. I'm going to take you to my favorite spot on the whole property."

 **A/N: A nice little reprieve and family time for these two.**

 **Upcoming: Dealing with baby talk and what's going on with Jay and the record label?**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"This is nice." Izzy whispered. That's how I knew she liked it. She whispered the same way when she first saw the house.

We'd both bundled up good and I drove us out into the middle of the property, past the stables, and close enough to hear the water from the creek. You couldn't see the house, or lights, or anything except the clear night sky and the stars. I threw a bunch of pillows and blankets in the back, mostly for Izzy's comfort. When I came out here, I just lay in the naked bed of the truck, but she was already sore, and I didn't want to make it worse, so I spread out all the blankets and piled pillows until we had us a little fox den, and we lay curled up together under one of the blankets, gazing up at the stars.

"I used to come out here every night while the house was under construction." I confessed. "Spent a lot of time thinkin', prayin' and being just plum pissed off. I knew where you were, or who you were with, rather, but I couldn't get to you, and the police wouldn't do jack. It made me fuckin' crazy."

Izzy's grip around my waist tightened, and I soothed my hand down her back, not wanting her to get worked up. "Sitting out here, looking up at the stars… it helped a lot. I spent a lot of the summer sun burned because I fell asleep out here thinking about you, and woke up cookin'."

"You never stopped." She said, looking up at me with those gorgeous chocolate eyes.

"Not once." I agreed.

"If it weren't for you, I never would have gotten out of there. I might be dead by now!"

"Shh." I played with the ends of her curls, hanging down the middle of her back. "That was never gonna happen, Sweetheart. I was always coming for you, I just had to find you. If the idiot hadn't brought you to my house, I wasn't above snatching you off a stage somewhere. Whatever it took. You're the best thing that ever happened to me. I wasn't about to lose you… not like that."

She sighed softly and snuggled down against my chest. She was quiet for a long moment, and then she said quietly "I still can't remember much. It's probably for the best. I… I remember coming to, sometimes when my head cleared and wondering where you were. And then I remembered who I was with, and I'd try to leave. I think once, I made it down to the lobby of his building, but that's as far as I ever got. I didn't try again after that because he always gave me more than usual, and I was scared he'd hurt the baby or he'd overdose and kill me. I don't think he measured anything out or gave me a certain specific amount. He just… drew up what the fuck ever."

I held my breath, trying to calm the rage that washed over me. I was mad enough to drag him out of wherever he was and beat him half to death. I'd have to call Emmett and check in. I still hadn't heard anything about a sentencing or trial, and we'd been on a social media blackout, more or less.

He could have killed her. Easily. Hundreds of times over. Every single time he injected her with that shit, could have been her last day on this Earth. I didn't have much trust in the judicial system after they wouldn't investigate what was going on with Izzy, and if they didn't nail his nuts to the wall, I would.

"Breathe, Baby." Izzy leaned up, but gasped when she saw the look on my face.

"Edward?"

"He could have killed you!" I snarled, sitting up and dragging her into my lap. "He could have easily killed you, so many fucking times. I would have never seen you again… never known for sure what happened… never known you were pregnant with my baby."

Iz tried to pull away, but I held her too tight. Wrapped around her body like a cobra, and refused to let go. I didn't want her to see me the tears rolling down my face. "I almost lost you." I breathed into her neck.

"I'm here now." Izzy stopped fighting me and clutched at me just as tight. "I'm here because you never gave up. Duke, you saved my life."

"I should have been faster. Maybe then, Anthony…"

"Hey." She struggled to pull away again, adjusting her arms until she held me to her chest instead. "I think about it sometimes," She said, and I could hear the catch in her voice, and I knew she was crying too. I tightened my grip around her waist. "And maybe… maybe it's a blessing that he… that he..." She paused and took a deep breath. "Those drugs might have messed him up, badly. His brain, his heart… I never even got to go to the doctor, and his life could have been pure hell. He might have been in pain every day. He might not have been able to live outside of me. He might have lived an hour, a day, a week…"

"Iz?"

"I'm not saying I'm glad it happened." She tucked her head down over mine and rocked us gently. "But maybe… maybe it's better that he went before… before he could feel it." The last of her words were choked out over sobs, and I pulled her down until I was holding her again, my chest hurting.

I cried right along with her. Cried for me, for her, and for our boy.

* & * & * ^^* ^$#

"They did an autopsy, remember?" Iz whispered when we had both cried ourselves out.

"I remember, Darlin'."

"They might have emailed me by now, but… I haven't felt like getting on the computer. Still need to get a phone too."

"What's wrong with your phone?" We were laying flat in the truck bed nestled in the blankets, our legs tangled together and her head pillowed on my arm.

"It doesn't connect to the internet or anything. It's a ZTE. Looks like an old blackberry, and you can't do anything but talk or text on it."

"What happened to your iPhone?"

"I threw it in a lake… or the ocean maybe?"

"On purpose?"

"Yeah?"

What the hell? "Why?"

"I don't remember." She groaned. "I just need a new one."

"We can go tomorrow." I insisted. "I'll show you the Galleria?"

"In Nashville?"

"Nah, it's here in Franklin. If we go when they open, it shouldn't be busy at all."

"Okay."

We both grew quiet, and I listened to the sound of the crickets and Katydids, enjoying the peace. My eyes stung a bit, but I couldn't be embarrassed about crying. Not with Iz. Now, more than ever, we needed to be open with each other.

Iz's cold hand slid beneath my clothes, idly caressing the skin on my stomach. I kissed her forehead as she traced the lines and divots with her finger.

"Edward?" She said finally, just when her tracing was starting to soothe me into dozing off.

"Yeah, Sweetheart?"

"I don't want to take another Depo shot."

Fear eased up my spine and into my gut, ice cold, where it latched on like a dog with a bone. "You think that'll be a long enough wait?"

We both stared at the stars twinkling above us, and Izzy gave a sort of half shrug. "If I'm on it too long, it can take a year to wear off after I stop taking it. Maybe… I want to stop it and if we still aren't ready, I can go on pills instead." The next part, she said in a whisper. "I want a baby, Duke."

"And when this whole mess of shit goes to trial?" I say, careful to watch my tone, lest she think I was upset when really, I was nervous. Hell, I was scared witless but I'm sure I always would be when it came to Iz being pregnant again. "It has to go to trial, but what if it's a long drawn out process. That's already going to be stressful as all get out. What if it lasts a year or more and you're pregnant? I'm scared silly of you being hurt again, Iz."

"I… didn't think about that." She admitted. "But… after then?"

I turned on my side to face her fully, and caressed her check with the back of my knuckle. "We have three months for your shot to wear off. By then, we should have a better idea of how this is gonna go. Come off your shot, and start on pills, and then as the trial starts coming to a close, we can start trying. I'd really like to marry you first, though. Please, Iz. I know you want a baby in your arms now, but I need us to be as safe as possible about it, and I need to be able to protect you. I need to know that the next time you're carrying my baby, nobody can take you away from me."

"I don't think many people get kidnapped twice in one lifetime." She said slowly. "Don't you think-"

"Don't tell me I'm being overboard right now!" I snap, sitting up. "Fucking Christ! I can't do that again."

" _You_ can't?" Iz growled, sliding out of the back of the truck. "I'm the one who got stabbed in the ass every day. I'm the one who had to live in fear that the next shot was going to be the one to kill me and my baby. I'm the one who carried him, and I'm the one who went in to labor and had to push out his body! I need this!"

"So I don't get a say?" I asked. I hopped out of the truck, slamming the tailgate closed and stalked over to her, gently gripping her chin between my thumb and index finger.

"My opinion doesn't mean shit to you? This ain't gonna be my kid, only yours? My fears and worries ain't valid, because I didn't carry him? Or they just mean less because I didn't know about him?"

I let her go and moved to the driver side door, wrenching it open.

"You know who I did know and worry about, Izzy? The woman I wanted to make my wife. I ran myself ragged and screwed my career over but good, looking for you every day for more than half the year. And when I found out you were pregnant, you don't think that hurt me? I may not have pushed him out, but I watched you do it, and it felt like somebody took a red hot poker and scrambled up my insides. And then I held his tiny body and looked down at a face that looked _exactly like mine_."

I stopped for a second, breathing hard and struggling to get my next words out without shoutin'.

"But you're right. You carried him, so none of that means fuck all."

I looked at her then, and she had tears streaming down her face. They moved me, of course they did. Her tears would always move me, but she'd also hurt me, and pettily, I was angry that she'd been so callous when my entire life has been dedicated to finding her and getting her back here.

"Duke… I…"

But I climbed in the truck and started it, drowning out her words. She got the hint, and climbed into the back seat, maybe not wanting to be next to me, or maybe fearing I'd leave without her if she took the time to walk around to the other side and get in the front. I waited for her to buckle in and then started back towards the house, turning on the radio to discourage her saying anything else to me until I calmed the hell down.

What in the fuck would make her say such a damned fool thing? No, I hadn't specifically gone through what she had, but that didn't mean she got to toss what I wanted aside because she suffered _more_. The more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off, and I was damn well fuming when we pulled into the garage.

As soon as she cleared the door, I grabbed her by the hand and towed her into the house and up the stairs.

"Duke, what the hell are you doing?"

I let her go when we reached the bedroom, and wrenched open my nightstand, snatching out the two boxes of condoms and the trashcan off the floor.

"What are you doing?" Izzy asked again as I ripped apart the full box of Magnums and then the open one, forcefully torpedoing the shredded cardboard and condoms into the can.

"I'm giving you want you wanted!" I hollered, slinging the whole mess of it to the floor. I grabbed her arm and hauled her close to me. "You want another baby, right? It doesn't matter what I feel about it because it's your baby and I'm just the sperm donor. I'll do my job, and knock you up, damn the consequences, because it's what you want. Don't worry, I'll try to keep my pointless worryin' and carryin' on to myself when I have to watch as we lose another one of my babies. Hell, we can start trying, Sweetheart, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow, because I'm so God damned mad at you right now, I can't see straight, let alone get hard."

Izzy gasped, looking like I may as well as slapped her.

Figures. Not wanting to fuck is the part she takes offense to.

I sighed, counting to ten. I made it to four before I realized my anger was getting hotter instead of cooler, so I just turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind me.

God damn it. God fucking damn it!

* * *

An hour later, I had cooled off, but my head was all over the place. I sat on the sectional in the basement in my underwear and socks with a blanket and pillow I'd pulled out of the back of the truck. I had my feet kicked up and my third beer in my hands. The television was on, and I'd started some series on Netflix, but truth be told, it was watching me, not the other way around.

I seriously wondered, not for the first time, if we were going to be one of those couples who couldn't survive the death of their child. It's not that I didn't think we were strong enough. I would fight off any and everything for Izzy, but I couldn't fight _her_. Not if she was going to be determined to sabotage herself and us.

I was ready to give in to her. If she really and truly wanted a baby, after we talked about the risks, then we would do it. The only thing I was putting my foot down on was waiting for was the trial. She would have to relive all the bullshit she'd been through and I didn't want her to go through another stressful pregnancy. Not if we could easily plan to avoid it. There was no reason to put her or another baby through Hell. A stressful pregnancy had almost killed my mother, and could have very well killed Izzy. I wasn't letting Izzy do that shit to herself willingly. I'd protect her from herself, even if she left me for it.

I took a swig out of my beer and sighed. Woman was going to be the death of me.

I heard the soft and slow footsteps on the stairs behind me then. _Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear_.

"Duke?" I turned my head to see Izzy stood at the foot of the stairs and wringing her hands. Slowly she walked around the back of the couch and came closer. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she was swimming in a pair of my sweats. When she noticed the pillow and blanket, her expression grew tighter and she wrung her hands faster.

I didn't say anything. I wanted to reach for her… felt just as tied up in knots as she looked, but I couldn't just yet.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, coming closer. "I didn't mean it. I just… I know, I _know_ it's not a good idea, but I don't know how else to…" She knelt on the floor at my feet and I groaned. "Izzy, don't." I hauled her into my lap, wrapping my arms behind her back and pressing my face to her breast.

So much for not touching her.

"Don't fucking kneel. Not like that."

Slowly, as if she was scared I'd dump her on the ground, she put her arms around me. "I'm sorry." She said again. "You're right, and we should wait until after the trial for another baby. And your opinion means everything to me, always. I just… I don't know how else to make it stop hurting." Her voice cracked and I felt her move one hand. When she placed it back around my neck, it was wet with the tears she'd wiped away. "It hurts so bad." She cried. "I can't stand feeling this way. I just wanna stop hurting!"

Aw hell. I was a fucking idiot.

"Baby." I squeezed her as tight as I dared as she sobbed. "I'm sorry Iz. I'm so fucking sorry."

I reached for the remote and shut the entertainment system down, then I gripped my fiancée, and carried her up the stairs in the darkness. In our bedroom, I slapped my beer down on the bedside table and climbed into bed with Izzy, shoving her pants down her legs and off, before surrounding her body with mine. I pressed every inch of my front against hers before I drew the heavy blanket over us.

"I'm sorry Izzy. I know you're hurtin', Sweetheart. But I think it's gonna hurt for a little while yet. I'm here though. I'm here, and I'm not goin' anywhere."

"I'm sorry." She stuttered. "I feel like all I do is cry."

"Hush now." I rolled us, so she was laying on my chest. "You cry if you need to. I've got you."

Iz cried herself to sleep that night, and I stayed awake for hours after, feeling like a huge dick. Yes, I was hurting too, but to some some extent, Izzy was right. She was hurting more, was _dealing with more_ and I should have been more careful of that instead of making her come seek me out, hat in hand. The green numbers on the clock on her side of the bed told me it was after 4 in the morning when I finally drifted off, promising to myself that I was gonna do better by her.


End file.
